DNA analysis by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry

The last decade has seen an increased demand for high-throughput DNA analysis. This is mainly due to the human genome sequencing project that is now completed. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry was pinpointed early on as a technology that could be of great use for sequence variation analysis in the post-genome sequencing era. Applications developed first on this platform were for SNP genotyping. Several strategies for allele-discrimination (hybridization, cleavage, ligation, and primer extension) were combined with MALDI-TOF mass spectrometric detection. Nowadays, in practice, only primer extension methods are applied for large-scale SNP genotyping studies with MALDI-TOF detection. Problems surrounding the integration of SNP genotyping by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry at high throughput are largely mastered now. Mass spectrometry geared presentations at the HUGO Mutation Detection Meeting in Palm Cove, Australia almost exclusively focused on novel applications that go beyond standard SNP genotyping. These applications are more demanding in terms of chemistry and molecular biology. Molecular haplotyping, expression profiling, DNA methylation analysis, and mutation detection are now being demonstrated.