Development of a fibrous DNA chip for cost-effective β-thalassemia genotyping.

β-thalassemia is one of the most common genetic disorders worldwide. Concerted efforts are being made to prevent the disease, as the medical and economic burden of thalassemia represents a major public health problem. The molecular diagnosis of the β-globin mutations that cause the disease currently involves a combination of classic methodologies. A microarray-based assay for parallel one-shot detection of mutations has been developed, but the assay remains too expensive for routine application. We developed a cost-effective plastic fiber-based DNA chip for the fast and reliable detection of 25 types of β-thalassemia mutations. Assay conditions were established and genotyping was successfully performed on a genomic sample from a β-thalassemia patient. Our data show that this β-thalassemia genotyping chip is an advantageous platform for mass genotyping because of its low cost, rapid results, and reliability.