Molecular combing and its application in clinical settings

Yiping Wang; Kishore Ramesh Kumar; Thomas Liehr

doi:10.1186/s13039-022-00628-8

Molecular combing and its application in clinical settings

Mol Cytogenet. 2022 Nov 16;15(1):50. doi: 10.1186/s13039-022-00628-8.

Authors

Yiping Wang^{1

2}, Kishore Ramesh Kumar¹, Thomas Liehr³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Human Genetics, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, Am Klinikum 1, 07747, Jena, Germany.
² Jinze Group Beijing Jinze Medical Laboratory, Building A, National Engineering Center for Protein Drugs, Building 1, 33 Science Park Road, Huilongguan Town, Changping District, Beijing, 1F, China.
³ Institute of Human Genetics, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, Am Klinikum 1, 07747, Jena, Germany. Thomas.Liehr@med.uni-jena.de.

Abstract

Molecular combing technology (MCT) is an effective means for stretching DNA molecules and making them thus accessible for in situ studies. MCT uses the force exerted in the process of liquid flow via surface tension to stretch DNA molecules and spread them on solid surfaces, i.e. glass cover slips. Many DNA molecules can be stretched at the same time in parallel and neatly arranged side-by-side, making the approach convenient for statistical analysis. Accordingly, DNA replication and transcription can be studied at the single molecule level. In this paper, the principle, experimental methods, important applications, advantages and shortcuts of MCT in medical field are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Acquired genetic diseases; Constitutional genetic diseases; Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH); Genomics; Molecular combing.

Publication types

Review