Pleasanton, CA – March 8, 2021 – Vortex Biosciences, a provider of advanced cell capture systems, today announced the publication of significant research in the peer-reviewed journal Prenatal Diagnosis. The study, conducted in partnership with Prof. Filip Van Nieuwerburgh’s team at Ghent University in Belgium, demonstrates the successful enrichment of circulating trophoblasts (CTs) from a single tube of maternal blood using Vortex’s VTX-1 platform.
This groundbreaking publication highlights the versatility of Vortex’s label-free isolation technology beyond oncology, extending its applicability to prenatal research. The study describes a combined workflow for isolating CTs from maternal blood at 11-13 weeks gestation. In spike-in experiments, the VTX-1 platform achieved approximately 35% recovery of trophoblast cell lines, and crucially, confirmed CT recovery in 7 out of 10 first-trimester samples from pregnant women carrying male fetuses.
Dr. Corinne Renier, Director of R&D at Vortex Biosciences, stated, “This is a first demonstration of the label-free isolation of CTs from maternal blood with the VTX-1, and a first step towards cell-based NIPT.” Professor Van Nieuwerburgh added that VTX-1’s ability to provide high-purity, size-based enrichment from whole blood facilitates downstream analysis and is a key step towards implementing a comprehensive cell-based Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (cbNIPT) workflow. This research paves the way for a promising alternative to current prenatal genomic testing, offering the potential for genetic analysis of the entire foetal genome.
