Improvements of preimplantation diagnosis of aneuploidy by using microwave hybridization, cell recycling and monocolour labelling of probes

Recent studies indicate that preimplantation genetic diagnosis of aneuploidy significantly reduces spontaneous abortions and increases pregnancy rates in women of advanced maternal age undergoing in-vitro fertilization. A new protocol was developed involving cell recycling (sequential hybridizations) and microwave hybridization of repetitive probes in order to obtain in a few hours enumeration results for chromosomes X, Y, 1, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21 and 22 in single blastomeres. The error rate using this protocol was significantly lower than in previous protocols and the analysis of nine chromosomes can be achieved in a shorter time than before.