Melting curve analysis is an assessment of the dissociation characteristics of double-stranded DNA during heating. As the temperature is raised, the double strand begins to dissociate leading to a rise in the absorbance intensity,

hyperchromicity Hyperchromicity is the increase of absorbance (''optical density'') of a material. The most famous example is the hyperchromicity of DNA that occurs when the DNA duplex is denatured. The UV absorption is increased when the two single DNA strands ...

. The temperature at which 50% of DNA is denatured is known as the melting temperature. Measurement of melting temperature can help us predict species by just studying the melting temperature. This is because every organism has a specific melting curve. The information gathered can be used to infer the presence and identity of

single-nucleotide polymorphisms In genetics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a sufficiently larg ...

(SNP). This is because G-C base pairing have 3

hydrogen bonds In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (or H-bond) is a primarily electrostatic force of attraction between a hydrogen (H) atom which is covalently bound to a more electronegative "donor" atom or group (Dn), and another electronegative atom bearing a l ...

between them while A-T base pairs have only 2. DNA with a higher G-C content, whether because of its source (G-C contents: E. coli 0.50, M. luteus 0.72, poly d(AT) 0.00) or, as previously mentioned, because of SNPs, will have a higher melting temperature than DNA with a higher A-T content. The information also gives vital clues to a molecule's mode of interaction with DNA. Molecules such as intercalators slot in between base pairs and interact through

pi stacking In chemistry, pi stacking (also called π–π stacking) refers to the presumptive attractive, noncovalent pi interactions ( orbital overlap) between the pi bonds of aromatic rings. However this is a misleading description of the phenomena since ...

. This has a stabilizing effect on DNA's structure which leads to a raise in its melting temperature. Likewise, increasing salt concentrations helps diffuse negative repulsions between the phosphates in the DNA's backbone. This also leads to a rise in the DNA's melting temperature. Conversely, pH can have a negative effect on DNA's stability which may lead to a lowering of its melting temperature.

Implementation

The energy required to break the base-base hydrogen bonding between two strands of DNA is dependent on their length, GC content and their complementarity. By heating a reaction-mixture that contains double-stranded DNA sequences and measuring dissociation against temperature, these attributes can be inferred. Originally, strand dissociation was observed using UV absorbance measurements, but techniques based on fluorescence measurements are now the most common approach. The temperature-dependent dissociation between two DNA-strands can be measured using a DNA-intercalating

fluorophore A fluorophore (or fluorochrome, similarly to a chromophore) is a fluorescent chemical compound that can re-emit light upon light excitation. Fluorophores typically contain several combined aromatic groups, or planar or cyclic molecules with se ...

such as SYBR green, EvaGreen or fluorophore-labelled

DNA probes In molecular biology, a hybridization probe (HP) is a fragment of DNA or RNA of usually 15–10000 nucleotide long which can be radioactively or fluorescently labeled. HP can be used to detect the presence of nucleotide sequences in analyzed ...

. In the case of SYBR green (which fluoresces 1000-fold more intensely while intercalated in the minor groove of two strands of DNA), the dissociation of the DNA during heating is measurable by the large reduction in fluorescence that results. Alternatively, juxtapositioned probes (one featuring a fluorophore and the other, a suitable quencher) can be used to determine the complementarity of the probe to the target sequence. The graph of the negative first derivative of the melting-curve may make it easier to pin-point the temperature of dissociation (defined as 50% dissociation), by virtue of the peaks thus formed. SYBR Green enabled product differentiation in the LightCycler in 1997. Hybridization probes (or FRET probes) were also demonstrated to provide very specific melting curves from the single-stranded (ss) probe-to-amplicon hybrid. Idaho Technology and Roche have done much to popularize this use on the LightCycler instrument.

Applications

Since the late 1990s product analysis via SYBR Green, other double-strand specific dyes, or probe-based melting curve analysis has become nearly ubiquitous. The probe-based technique is sensitive enough to detect single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and can distinguish between

homozygous Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism. Mo ...

wildtype The wild type (WT) is the phenotype of the typical form of a species as it occurs in nature. Originally, the wild type was conceptualized as a product of the standard "normal" allele at a locus, in contrast to that produced by a non-standard, " ...

heterozygous Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism. ...

and homozygous

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

alleles by virtue of the dissociation patterns produced. Without probes, amplicon melting (melting and analysis of the entire PCR product) was not generally successful at finding single base variants through melting profiles. With higher resolution instruments and advanced dyes, amplicon melting analysis of one base variants is now possible with several commercially available instruments. For example: Applied Biosystems 7500 Fast System and the 7900HT Fast Real-Time PCR System, Idaho Technology's LightScanner (the first plate-based high resolution melting device), Qiagen's Rotor-Gene instruments, and Roche's LightCycler 480 instruments. Many research and clinical examplesLay MJ, Wittwer CT. (1997) Real-time fluorescence genotyping of factor V Leiden during rapid-cycle PCR. Clin Chem. 1997 Dec;43(12):2262-7 exist in the literature that show the use of melting curve analysis to obviate or complement sequencing efforts, and thus reduce costs. While most quantitative PCR machines have the option of melting curve generation and analysis, the level of analysis and software support varies.

High Resolution Melt High Resolution Melt (HRM) analysis is a powerful technique in molecular biology for the detection of mutations, polymorphisms and epigenetic differences in double-stranded DNA samples. It was discovered and developed by Idaho Technology an ...

(known as either Hi-Res Melting, or HRM) is the advancement of this general technology and has begun to offer higher sensitivity for SNP detection within an entire dye-stained amplicon. It is less expensive and simpler in design to develop probeless melting curve systems. However, for genotyping applications, where large volumes of samples must be processed, the cost of development may be less important than the total throughput and ease of interpretation, thus favoring probe-based genotyping methods.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Melting Curve Analysis Biochemistry

Implementation

Applications

See also

References

External links