Rapid Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing Platform for Molecular Screening and Clinical Genotyping in Subjects with Hemoglobinopathies

• Main Authors: Xuan Shang, Zhiyu Peng, Yuhua Ye, Asan, Xinhua Zhang, Yan Chen, Baosheng Zhu, Wangwei Cai, Shaoke Chen, Ren Cai, Xiaoling Guo, Chonglin Zhang, Yuqiu Zhou, Shuodan Huang, Yanhui Liu, Biyan Chen, Shanhuo Yan, Yajun Chen, Hongmei Ding, Xiaolin Yin, Liusong Wu, Jing He, Dongai Huang, Sheng He, Tizhen Yan, Xin Fan, Yuehong Zhou, Xiaofeng Wei, Sumin Zhao, Decheng Cai, Fengyu Guo, Qianqian Zhang, Yun Li, Xuelian Zhang, Haorong Lu, Huajie Huang, Junfu Guo, Fei Zhu, Yuan Yuan, Li Zhang, Na Liu, Zhiming Li, Hui Jiang, Qiang Zhang, Yijia Zhang, Wan Khairunnisa Wan Juhari, Sarifah Hanafi, Wanjun Zhou, Fu Xiong, Huanming Yang, Jian Wang, Bin Alwi Zilfalil, Ming Qi, Yaping Yang, Ye Yin, Mao Mao, Xiangmin Xu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2017-09-01
• Series: EBioMedicine
• Subjects: Hemoglobinopathy; Next-generation sequencing; Molecular screening; Clinical genotyping
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396417303328

Hemoglobinopathies are among the most common autosomal-recessive disorders worldwide. A comprehensive next-generation sequencing (NGS) test would greatly facilitate screening and diagnosis of these disorders. An NGS panel targeting the coding regions of hemoglobin genes and four modifier genes was designed. We validated the assay by using 2522 subjects affected with hemoglobinopathies and applied it to carrier testing in a cohort of 10,111 couples who were also screened through traditional methods. In the clinical genotyping analysis of 1182 β-thalassemia subjects, we identified a group of additional variants that can be used for accurate diagnosis. In the molecular screening analysis of the 10,111 couples, we detected 4180 individuals in total who carried 4840 mutant alleles, and identified 186 couples at risk of having affected offspring. 12.1% of the pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants identified by our NGS assay, which were undetectable by traditional methods. Compared with the traditional methods, our assay identified an additional at-risk 35 couples. We describe a comprehensive NGS-based test that offers advantages over the traditional screening/molecular testing methods. To our knowledge, this is among the first large-scale population study to systematically evaluate the application of an NGS technique in carrier screening and molecular diagnosis of hemoglobinopathies.