Denaturing High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Bioinformatics - Two Modern Tools for Extracellular Superoxide Dismutase (SOD3) Gene Promoter Analysis

Denaturing High Performance Liquid Chromatography (DHPLC) is a relatively new method used for screening DNA sequences, characterized by high capacity to detect mutations/polymorphisms. This study is focused on the Transgenomic WAVETM DNA Fragment Analysis (based on DHPLC separation method) of a 485 bp fragment from human EC-SOD gene promoter in order to detect single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) associated with atherosclerosis and risk factors of cardiovascular disease. The fragment of interest was amplified by PCR reaction and analyzed by DHPLC in 100 healthy subjects and 70 patients characterized by atheroma. No different melting profiles were detected for the analyzed DNA samples. A combination of computational methods was used to predict putative transcription factors in the fragment of interest. Several putative transcription factors binding sites from the Ets-1 oncogene family: ETS member Elk-1, polyomavirus enhancer activator-3 (PEA3), protein C-Ets-1 (Ets-1), GABP: GA binding protein (GABP), Spi-1 and Spi-B/PU.1 related transcription factors, from the Krueppel-like family: Gut-enriched Krueppel-like factor (GKLF), Erythroid Krueppel-like factor (EKLF), Basic Krueppel-like factor (BKLF), GC box and myeloid zinc finger protein MZF-1 were identified in the evolutionary conserved regions. The bioinformatics results need to be investigated further in others studies by experimental approaches.