Premium
The migration anomaly of DNA fragments in polyacrylamide gels allows the detection of small sequence‐specific DNA structure variations
Author(s) -
Diekmann Stephan
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/elps.1150100513
Subject(s) - dna , polyacrylamide , sequence (biology) , wedge (geometry) , helix (gastropod) , electrophoresis , twist , biophysics , dna sequencing , a dna , gel electrophoresis , biology , chemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , physics , optics , geometry , mathematics , paleontology , snail
Curved DNA fragments have a reduced electrophoretic mobility in polyacrylamide gels. The retardation in gels is extremely sensitive to small structural variations which influence the DNA helix axis. This gel assay can also be used to detect very small structural variations in DNA sequences which are not curved: The noncurved seguences of interest can be combined with curved stretches in phase with the helix turn. Using such sequence constructions, even subtle influences on the DNA helix axis can be detected. Experiments of this kind allow the determination of a relative order of sequence‐specific DNA twist and wedge angles.