Background: The clinically important variants of butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) are the A- (Asp70Gly) and K-variants (Ala539Thr), which are common among Caucasians. These variants are associated with abnormal drug metabolism during anaesthesia, which leads to a prolonged neuromuscular block following administration of the neuromuscular blocking agents, mivacurium and succinylcholine. In addition, the K-variant has been proposed to be associated with Alzheimer's disease together with apolipoprotein E epsilon4. To facilitate diagnostics, we set out to establish a rapid and simple method for simultaneous genotyping of the A- and K-variants.
Methods: Using the LightCycler, a rapid-cycle duplex PCR is combined with generation of allele-specific fluorescent probe melting profiles. This allows simultaneous detection of both of the mutations in the BChE gene. The results were compared with direct sequencing and phenotyping results.
Results: Samples from 80 subjects were genotyped. The genotypes determined using the LightCycler were identical to those obtained by direct sequencing of conventional polymerase chain reaction products and was more accurate than phenotyping based on biochemical assays.
Conclusions: A high-speed and easy to perform mutation detection assay has been established for the two most common mutations, Asp70Gly and Ala539Thr, in BChE, using the LightCycler technology and melting curves.