OBJECTIVETo establish a rapid method for detecting MTHFR gene 677C>T polymorphisms with high-resolution melting curve method (HRM) and pyrosequencing.

METHODSPeripheral blood samples were collected from 155 Down syndrome patients and 182 normal controls from Children's Hospital of Shanghai. The accuracy of three methods including regular HRM, internal control HRM and artificial heterozygosity HRM was compared. Meanwhile, allele frequencies in 10, 30 and 50 mixed samples were measured with pyrosequencing, and the results were compared with that of HRM.

RESULTSHeterozygosity of 677C>T polymorphism could be distinguished by various HRM methods. However, homozygotes CC and TT were only identifiable by internal control HRM and artificial heterozygosity HRM. The accuracy of pyrosequencing for allele frequency has improved with increased sample number. When the number of mixed samples has exceeded 30, the difference between pyrosequencing results and actual values became less than 4%. TT genotype was more frequent in Down syndrome patients than controls (25.2% vs. 14.3%). No significant difference was found in T allele frequency between the two groups (44.9% vs. 40.1%).

CONCLUSIONRespectively, internal control HRM and pyrosequencing may be ideal methods for determination of genotypic and allelic frequencies.