Congenital, Hereditary, and Neonatal Diseases and Abnormalities Commons^™

Screening And Diagnosing Spinal Muscular Atrophy By Use Of Buccal Swabs: A Validation Study Using Ddpcr, Anna Mackay

Honors Scholar Theses

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a genetic neuromuscular disorder characterized by progressive muscle weakness due to the degeneration of motor neurons. SMA is caused by a homozygous deletion, mutation or rearrangement in the Survival Motor Neuron 1 (SMN1) gene. Survival Motor Neuron 2 (SMN2) is located tandem to SMN1 and is identical to SMN1 except for a single nucleotide substitution in exon 7. SMA diagnosis and carrier status can be determined by droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). This study sought to validate Bio-Rad’s ddPCR SMN1and SMN2 gene determination copy number assay for SMA diagnosis and screening using buccal swabs specimens. Buccal …