Single nucleotide polymorphism discrimination with and without an ethidium bromide intercalator

Abstract

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping is an important aspect in understanding genetic variations. Here, we discriminate SNPs using toe-hold mediated displacement reactions. The biological target is an 80 nucleotide long double-stranded–DNA from the mtDNA HV1 region, associated with maternal ancestry. This target has been specially designed with a pendant toehold and a cationic fluorophore, ATTO 647N, as a reporter, produced in a polymerase chain reaction. Rates of reaction for the toehold-polymerase chain reaction products (TPPs) with their corresponding complementary displacing sequences, labelled with a Black Hole Quencher 1, followed the order TPP–Cytosine > TPP–Thymine > TPP–Ad..