ABSTRACT
Polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis is a kind of sensitive mutation detection method that has been usually used in field of medical genetics. A single DNA strand with a mutation or nucleotide polymorphism has a different conformation from its wild-type counterpart, and these conformational differences result in different electrophoretic mobility. In previous study of mitochondrial microsatellite instability in 50 uterine leiomyomas, PCR-SSCP showed 4 types of band mobility at (CA)n of the mitochondrial D-loop. In type 1 and 4, positions of the lower single stand of both were same but those of upper strand were different. In sequencing analysis, repeat number of (CA)n in type 1 was 4, 5 in type 2, 6 in type 3, and 4 in type 4, respectively. Without using expensive sequencing analysis, PCR-SSCP method can be used to detect the repeat number of (CA)n in mitochondrial D-loop.