A Method for Detection of Point Mutation Combined by Mutagenically Separated PCR with High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A method for detecting a known point mutation has been developed by combining mutagenically separated polymerase chain reaction with high performance liquid chromatography. C677T mutation from methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene (MTHFR) was chosen as model samples to assess the feasibility of this method. The annealing temperature for MS-PCR and gradient conditions for HPLC were systematically optimized. Under the optimized conditions, three genotypes of wild type, homozygous mutant and heterozygote (C677C, T677T, C677T) were clearly distinguished, and the data are identical to those obtained from capillary electrophoresis (CE) and from denaturing HPLC (DHPLC). The relative standard deviation (RSD) of this method calculated on the basis of retention times is ± 0.13% (n=7). Our preliminary results demonstrate that MS-PCR combined with HPLC is a simple, effective and highly reproducible technique for known point mutation detection, and may have potential applications in large-scale clinical diagnosis.