Strategies for Amplification of Trinucleotide Repeats: Optimization of Fragile X and Androgen Receptor PCR

Background: Trinucleotide repeat regions are heritable unstable elements that change in copy number from generation to generation. Amplification of these triplet repeats is an important diagnostic tool for molecular medicine. However, these repeats are often difficult to amplify and may require the use of different cosolvents or amplification strategies. Methods and Results: We used the fragile X and androgen receptor triplet repeat regions to demonstrate a series of conditions that may be used to optimize the amplification of repeat sequences. Conclusions: For androgen receptor, we show that predigestion of the template DNA was sufficient to generate consistent amplification. In the case of fragile X we found that predigestion, when combined with use of betaine as a destabilizing additive, was superior to other methods and yielded consistent amplification of normal and premutation alleles in both isotopic and nonisotopic reactions.