Methods for determining fraction of fetal nucleic acids in maternal samples

1. A fetal gender-independent method for determining the fraction of fetal cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in a maternal sample obtained from a pregnant woman, said sample comprising a mixture of fetal and maternal cfDNA, and said method comprising:

(a) isolating said mixture of fetal and maternal cfDNA from said sample, wherein said sample is obtained from a woman pregnant with a male or a female fetus;

(b) preselecting a plurality of predetermined polymorphic target nucleic acids, wherein said plurality of predetermined polymorphic target nucleic acids are located on chromosomes other than chromosome 13, 18, 21, X or Y, and wherein each of said target nucleic acids is known to comprise at least one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP);

(c) amplifying said plurality of predetermined polymorphic target nucleic acids in said mixture of fetal and maternal cfDNA;

(d) preparing a sequencing library using at least a portion of the amplified product obtained in step (c);

(e) performing massively parallel sequencing of at least a portion of said library obtained in step (d) to provide sequence information for a plurality of sequence tags for said plurality of predetermined polymorphic target nucleic acids;

(f) using a computer program, aligning said sequence information for said plurality of sequence tags to a reference sequence, wherein said reference sequence comprises allelic sequences for said at least one SNP in each of said plurality of predetermined target nucleic acids;

(g) counting the number of sequence tags aligned to said allelic sequences;

(h) identifying at least 10 informative SNPs from the number of sequence tags obtained in step (g), wherein said at least 10 informative SNPs are identified by the difference in allelic sequences for each SNP;

(i) for each of said informative SNPs, calculating said fraction of fetal cfDNA from the total number of sequence tags aligned to a first allele and the total number of sequence tags aligned to a second allele at each of said informative SNPs; and

(j) determining the fraction of fetal cell-free DNA in the maternal sample as the average of the fraction of fetal cfDNA calculated for each of the informative SNPs in step (i) to provide a fetal gender-independent determination of said fraction of fetal cfDNA in said maternal sample.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein amplifying said plurality of predetermined polymorphic target nucleic acids in step (b) comprises performing PCR.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said massively parallel sequencing is sequencing-by-synthesis with reversible dye terminators.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said massively parallel sequencing is sequencing-by-ligation.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said massively parallel sequencing is single molecule sequencing.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said massively parallel sequencing comprises amplification.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said maternal sample is selected from blood, plasma, serum, urine and saliva.

8. The method of Claim 1 , wherein said plurality of polymorphic nucleic acids are located on a plurality of different chromosomes.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of said SNPs is a single SNP selected from rs560681, rs1109037, rs9866013, rs13182883, rs13218440, rs7041158, rs740598, rs10773760, rs4530059, rs7205345, rs8078417, rs576261, rs2567608, rs430046, rs9951171, rs338882, rs10776839, rs9905977, rs1277284, rs258684, rs1347696, rs508485, rs9788670, rs8137254, rs3143, rs2182957, rs3739005, and rs530022.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein said plurality of polymorphic nucleic acids are located on the same chromosome.