Development of Real-time PCR Kit for Detection and Quantitation of Six Common Mutations A3243G, G3380A, A8344G, T8993G, T8993C, G11778A of Human Mitochondrial Genome

A procedure for production of a real-time PCR kit for detection and quantitation of 6 common mitochondrial genome mutations including A3243G, G3380A, A8344G, T8993G, T8993C, G11778A using fluorescent locked nucleic acid (LNA) Taqman probes was reported. The procedure consists of designing of specific primers and LNA probes, selection of master mixture components and real-time PCR thermal conditions. The produced kit had specificity of 100% and sensitivity ≥ 1% and remained fully active after 7 days of storage at 25 oC or 20 days at 4 oC or 6 months at -20 oC. The kit was used to analyze A3243G, G3380A, A8344G, T8993G, T8993C, G11778A mutations from 69 patients tentatively diagnosed with mitochondrial diseases and 3 cases of A3243G carriers (4.34%) was found. In these cases, the A3243G mutation was heteroplasmic, maternally inherited, and the heteroplasmy level was shown to be related to the symptome expression.tome expression.