Reliability of SE33 typing by capillary electrophoresis

A ladder of 24 ACTBP2 (SE33) alleles was separated 175 times by denaturing capillary electrophoresis on an ABI Prism(TM) 310 Genetic Analyzer using po lymer POP-4(TM). The mean standard deviation of fragment size determination was 0.083 bp. Fragments in the whole allelic range of ACTBP2 could be type d with high precision and reproducibility if adjacent fragments differed by at least two nucleotides. The capacity of resolving 1 bp differences was t ested by repeatedly running a ACTBP2*14.2/14.3/31.2/31.3 allelic mixture. T he 14.2/14.3 fragment pair could be separated in 98%, the 31.2/31.3 fragmen t pair only in 65% of all runs. Reliable separation of this difficult fragm ent mixture could exclusively achieved by using POP-6(TM). (C) 2000 Elsevie r Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.