Conformation-Sensitive Gel Electrophoresis

Abstract

Conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis (CSGE) was first described by Ganguly et al. in 1993 (1). This technique was developed as the result of a study into a rapid, non-radioactive heteroduplex-based detection method for mutation screening. The method relies on the differential migration of DNA heteroduplexes in comparison with homoduplexes during polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis under mildly denaturing conditions. Ethidium bromide staining and visualization under ultraviolet (UV) light determines those samples with aberrant banding patterns resulting from heteroduplexes. These samples are subsequently subjected to DNA sequencing to determine the nature of the nucleotide alteration.