HLA-DR/Dw matching by PCR fingerprinting: the origin of PCR fingerprints and further applications.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) fingerprinting, a new method for the rapid matching of HLA-Dr/Dw allotypes, involves the visual comparison of polymorphic HLA-DRB gene second exon PCR products, resolved in non-denaturing polyacrylamide gels (Bidwell & Hui, 1990). We show here that the satellite DNA bands within PCR fingerprints originate by heteroduplex formation between heterologous DNAs co-amplified by a common PCR primer set. We also present two further applications of the technique which permit discrimination between unrelated HLA-DR/Dw allotypes with similar PCR fingerprints.