Objective: To explore a technology for diagnosing VHL mutations from a single cell and provide experimental evidences for the feasibility of applying technology in detecting genetic mutations from a single cell.
Methods: After whole genome amplification (WGA) based on multiple displacement amplication (MDA) for a single cell, we did regular PCR following sequencing and detected the genotypes using the real time PCR based on TaqMan probes. We detected VHL mutations by the different terminal fluorescent changing.
Results: The rate of amplification for single cell based on MDA was 90.91%. The rate of contamination was 0. After sequencing, the allele drop out (ADO) rate of heterozygotes was 26.67%(8/30); combined with the different terminal fluorescent changing, the rate of ADO of heterozygotes was 16.67%.
Conclusion: WGA based on MDA for a single cell followed by regular PCR with sequencing and real time PCR can specially and accurately detect the VHL genotypes of single cells.