PNAFISH on Human Sperm

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) constitute a remarkable new class of synthetic nucleic acids analogs, based on peptide-like backbone. This structure gives PNAs the capacity to hybridize with high affinity and specificity to complementary RNA and DNA sequences. Over the last few years, the use of PNAs has proven its efficacy in cytogenetics for the rapid in situ identification of human chromosomes. Multicolour PNA–FISH protocols have been described and their adaptation to human spermatozoa has allowed the development of a new and fast procedure, which can advantageously be used for the assessment of aneuploidy in male gametes.