A digital microfluidic platform for cell-based non-invasive testing

Gold-standard prenatal genetic diagnostics rely on invasive sampling procedures, which carry a small risk of miscarriage and do not yield results until after 14 weeks of gestation. Cervical mucosa is a promising cellular source for intact fetal cells but is limited by the paucity of fetal cells. We apply digital microfluidic isolation of single cells for omics (DISCO) to collect fetal cells from cervical mucosa for prenatal genetic diagnostics. Using gold standard markers, we collected putative fetal cells from transcervical swabs but found the material was predominantly of maternal origin. By integrating placental and transcervical swab transcriptomes, we identified a population of putative fetal cells characterized by 147 marker genes in common with fetal placental tissue. DISCO collections of prospective fetal cells contained identifiable fetal and maternal DNA. Thus, our DISCO system enabled the identification of fetal cell markers, collection of putative fetal cells, and analysis of fetal DNA.