Background: DNA hairpins have been used in molecular analysis of PCR products as self-probing amplicons. Either physical separation or fluorescent oligonucleotides with covalent modifications were previously necessary.
Methods: We performed asymmetric PCR for 40-45 cycles in the presence of the saturating DNA dye, LCGreen Plus, with 1 primer including a 5' tail complementary to its extension product, but without any special covalent modifications. Samples were amplified either on a carousel LightCycler for speed or on a 96/384 block cycler for throughput. In addition to full-length amplicon duplexes, single-stranded hairpins were formed by the primer tail "snapping back" and hybridizing to its extension product. High-resolution melting was performed on a HR-1 (for capillaries) or a LightScanner (for plates).
Results: PCR products amplified with a snapback primer showed both hairpin melting at lower temperature and full-length amplicon melting at higher temperature. The hairpin melting temperature was linearly related to the stem length (6-28 bp) and inversely related to the log of the loop size (17-135 bases). We easily genotyped heterozygous and homozygous variants within the stem, and 100 blinded clinical samples previously typed for F5 1691G>A (Leiden) were completely concordant by snapback genotyping. We distinguished 7 genotypes in 2 regions of CFTR exon 10 with symmetric PCR using 2 snapback primers followed by product dilution to favor intramolecular hybridization.
Conclusions: Snapback primer genotyping with saturating dyes provides the specificity of a probe with only 2 primers that are free of special covalent labels in a closed-tube system.