Long-range polony haplotyping of individual human chromosome molecules

We report a method for multilocus long-range haplotyping on human chromosome molecules in vitro based on the DNA polymerase colony (polony) technology. By immobilizing thousands of intact chromosome molecules within a polyacrylamide gel on a microscope slide and performing multiple amplifications from single molecules, we determined long-range haplotypes spanning a 153-Mb region of human chromosome 7 and found evidence of rare mitotic recombination events in human lymphocytes. Furthermore, the parallel nature of DNA polony technology allows efficient haplotyping on pooled DNAs from a population on one slide, with a throughput three orders of magnitudes higher than current molecular haplotyping methods. Linkage disequilibrium statistics established by our pooled DNA haplotyping method are more accurate than statistically inferred haplotypes. This haplotyping method is well suited for candidate gene-based association studies as well as for investigating the pattern of recombination in mammalian cells.