A denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis assay for sensitive detection of p53 mutations.

p53 is a tumor suppressor gene located on 17p, a region of the human genome frequently deleted in tumors. Mutation of the p53 gene is an important step leading to development of many forms of human cancer. To simplify the analysis of tumors for p53 point mutations, we describe a GC-clamped denaturing gradient gel assay for detecting single-base substitutions within highly conserved regions of the p53 gene. This assay allows for efficient screening of tumors for single-base substitutions within the p53 gene and can be used to facilitate sequence analysis of p53 point mutations.