Determination of the exon structure of the distal portion of the dystrophin gene by vectorette PCR.

The structure of the 3' one-third of the dystrophin gene has not previously been established. We have used vectorette PCR on a yeast artificial chromosome containing part of the human dystrophin gene to determine that there are 20 exons in this region and to characterize adjacent intron sequences of each one. Combined with previous information on the remainder of the gene, this study shows that the coding sequence is distributed between 79 exons. We have used PCR between exons to measure the distances that separate the more closely clustered exons. Vectorette PCR products were used as probes on Southern blots to assign all the 3' exons to genomic HindIII fragments that are commonly detected in the analysis of dystrophin gene deletions. The results will be useful for determining the effect of genomic deletions on the translational reading frame, for setting up genomic PCR assays to confirm point mutations, for analyzing splice site mutations, and for investigating potential cis-acting elements involved in tissue-specific alternative splicing. Vectorette PCR using primers derived from cDNA sequence represents an efficient and widely applicable method for establishing gene structure and obtaining intron sequence flanking exons, starting from a genomic clone and a cDNA sequence.