Zn(II)Cyclen Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis for SNP Detection

We introduce a method for the detection of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) with an additive Zn²⁺ –cyclen complex (cyclen is 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane), called “Zn²⁺ –cyclen–PAGE.” The method is based on the difference in mobility of mutant DNA (of the same length) in PAGE, which is due to Zn²⁺ –cyclen binding to thymine bases accompanying a total charge decrease and a local conformation change of target DNA. In combination with a polymerase chain reaction based heteroduplexing technique, the method is more accurate than many other conventional PAGE-based methods, as shown by clear gel-shifting bands because of the separation of heteroduplex and homoduplex DNAs. We demonstrate SNP mapping and heterozygosity screening in a human cardiac sodium channel gene (i.e., SCN5A ) that relates to inherited arrhythmia syndromes using Zn²⁺ –cyclen–PAGE.