Applications of constant denaturant capillary electrophoresis/high-fidelity polymerase chain reaction to human genetic analysis

Constant denaturant capillary electrophoresis (CDCE) permits high-resolutio n separation of single-base variations occurring in an similar to 100 bp is omelting DNA sequence based on their differential melting temperatures. By coupling CDCE for highly efficient enrichment of mutants with high-fidelity polymerase chain reaction (hifi PCR), we have developed an analytical appr oach to detecting point mutations at frequencies equal to or greater than 1 0(-6) in human genomic DNA. In this article, we present several application s of this approach in human genetic studies. We have measured the point mut ational spectra of a 100 bp mitochondrial DNA sequence in human tissues and cultured cells. The observations have led to the conclusion that the prima ry causes of mutation in human mitochondrial DNA are spontaneous in origin. In the course of studying the mitochondrial somatic mutations, we have als o identified several nuclear pseudogenes homologous to the analyzed mitocho ndrial DNA fragment. Recently, through developments of the means to isolate the desired target sequences from bulk genomic DNA and to increase the loa ding capacity of CDCE, we have extended the CDCE/hifi PCR approach to study a chemically induced mutational spectrum in a single-copy nuclear sequence . Future applications of the CDCE/hifi PCR approach to human genetic analys is include studies of somatic mitochondrial mutations with respect to aging , measurement of mutational spectra of nuclear genes in healthy human tissu es and population screening for disease-associated single nucleotide polymo rphisms (SNPs) in large pooled samples.