Detection of DNA point mutations with DNA mismatch repair enzymes

We have developed a simple and reliable procedure to screen gene mutations using DNA mismatch repair (MR) specific mut Y enzyme of Escherichia coli and thymidine DNA glycosylase from HeLa cells. The mut Y enzyme cleaves A of G/A mismatches in DNA duplex and thymidine glycosylase cleaves T at G/T mismatches. Previously, we showed the determination of G:C-->T:A mutations in the N-ras gene in two human tumor samples with mut Y G/A MR enzyme. As low as 1-2% mutant DNAs in a sample of mutant and wild-type DNA can be detected with a synthetic DNA to create G/A mispairing for the assay. In this paper, we simplify the assay, include G/T MR thymidine glycosylase from HeLa cells and evaluate the application for screening DNA point mutations of p53 and ras genes. In this method, DNA fragments amplified from normal and mutated genes by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were mixed and annealed to create DNA mismatches for cleavage by mismatch repair enzymes. The cleaved products and the substrates were separated by gel electrophoresis and detected by autoradiography. In theory, the enzymes that cut G/A or G/T mispairs will detect the mutations of G:C-->A:T, A:T-->G:C, G:C-->T:A and T:A-->G:C. Several human tumor samples were examined for p53 or K-ras mutations with G/A and G/T mismatch repair enzymes. The reliability of mutation detection was evaluated by comparing the results with reported mutations or confirmed by DNA sequencing of the same PCR-amplified DNA fragments. Our data showed that, following mismatch repair enzyme cleavage, all mutated DNA samples yielded cleaved products with sizes as expected. In addition, our assay is able to characterize the nature of mutation by 5' end-labeling of 32P on mutant or wild-type DNA fragments. The low background, reliability and the determination of the sites of mutations as well as the types of DNA base changes indicate the advantages of the method over other techniques in testing DNA mutants.