Karyomapping and how is it improving preimplantation genetics?

Introduction: Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and screening (PGD/PGS) has been applied clinically for >25 years however inherent drawbacks include the necessity to tailor each case to the trait in question, and that technology to detect monogenic and chromosomal disorders respectively is fundamentally different.

Areas Covered: The area of preimplantation genetics has evolved over the last 25 years, adapting to changes in technology and the need for more efficient, streamlined diagnoses. Karyomapping allows the determination of inheritance from the (grand)parental haplobocks through assembly of inherited chromosomal segments. The output displays homologous chromosomes, crossovers and the genetic status of the embryos by linkage comparison, as well as chromosomal disorders. It also allows for determination of heterozygous SNP calls, avoiding the risks of allele dropout, a common problem with other PGD techniques. Manuscripts documenting the evolution of preimplantation genetics, especially those investigating technologies that would simultaneously detect monogenic and chromosomal disorders, were selected for review.

Expert Commentary: Karyomapping is currently available for detection of single gene disorders; ~1000 clinics worldwide offer it (via ~20 diagnostic laboratories) and ~2500 cases have been performed. Due an inability to detect post-zygotic trisomy reliably however and confounding problems of embryo mosaicism, karyomapping has yet to be applied clinically for detection of chromosome disorders.