Development of analytical technologies for human genomic DNA using capillary electrophoresis and their applications

Abstract

Capillary electrophoretic systems equipped with a multi-color detectable laser-induced fluorescent DNA detector (CE-LIF) were developed. We examined the efficiency and the performance of the CE-LIF systems for the high-speed DNA sequencing and DNA diagnosis for human diseases. The effect of the gel composition, electric field strength, and capillary length on the separation of DNA sequencing reaction product was investigated in order to achieve high-speed DNA sequencing for large-scale sequencing in the Human Genome Project. The CE-LIF system is successfully applied to ultrafast cDNA sequencing for human and yeast genomes. Under optimum separation conditions, only 10 min is required to sequence 300 base DNA. A polymer solution of cellulose derivative was utilized as a sieving medium for the CE-LIF system and gave excellent resolution of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified polymorphic loci on the human genome. The CE-LIF system is successfully applied to the DNA diagnosis for cancers through CA repeat analysis of human D8S 1218 locus, heart diseases through VNTR (variable number of tandem repeat) analysis of human apolipoprotein B gene and Alzheimer's disease through RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) analysis of human apolipoprotein E gene with high-speed and high resolution. Capillary affinity gel electrophoresis was developed as a new technique for the recognition of the specific DNA base and/or sequence. This technology is also applicable to the characterization of binding properties of DNA based drugs. The principle, the theory, and the methods of capillary affinity gel electrophoresis are presented. This technique is applied to the determination of association constants between an affinity ligand and oligonucleotides. The great potential of capillary affinity gel electrophoresis for the detection of the mutation on DNA is illustrated.