High-throughput genotyping assay approaches

High-throughput genotyping approaches are being developed to meet the demands of pharmacogenomnics, where numerous individuals are studied with thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. All non-gel-based genotyping approaches achieve allelic discrimination by one of four mechanisms: allele-specific hybridisation, allele-specific primer extension, allele-specific oligonucleotide ligation and allele-specific cleavage of a flap probe. By combining one of these allelic discrimination mechanisms with either a homogeneous or solid-phase reaction format and a detection method such as fluorescence intensity, fluorescence polarisation or mass spectrometry, a number of viable high-throughput genotyping methods have been developed and are being readied for routine use. With the biochemistry for robust genotyping in place, good engineering solutions are needed to make high-throughput genotyping a reality.