Detection of single nucleotide mutations in wheat using single strand conformation polymorphism gels

We show that single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis, using the mutation detection enhancement (MDE(TM)) matrix, is efficient at detecting sequence polymorphisms in PCR amplicons. Four independent wheat genomic fragments were amplified from two contrasting templates and sequenced. The allelic fragments were differentiated at 1-6 single nucleotide positions, but MDE-SSCP was able to unequivocally distinguish each allelic pair. The approach is therefore considered a powerful way of identifying single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) without extensive amplicon sequencing.