Analysis of disease-causing genes and DNA-based drugs by capillary electrophoresis. Towards DNA diagnosis and gene therapy for human diseases.

Rapid progress in the Human Genome Project has stimulated investigations for gene therapy and DNA diagnosis of human diseases through mutation or polymorphism analysis of disease-causing genes and has resulted in a new class of drugs, i.e., DNA-based drugs, including human gene, disease-causing gene, antisense DNA, DNA vaccine, triplex-forming oligonucleotide, protein-binding oligonucleotides, and ribozyme. The recent development of capillary electrophoresis technologies has facilitated the application of capillary electrophoresis to the analysis of DNA-based drugs and the detection of mutations and polymorphism on human genes towards DNA diagnosis and gene therapy for human diseases. In this article the present state of studies on the analysis of DNA-based drugs and disease-causing genes by capillary electrophoresis is reviewed. The paper gives an overview of recent progress in the Human Genome Project and the fundamental aspects of polymerase chain reaction-based technologies for the detection of mutations and polymorphism on human genes and capillary electrophoresis techniques. Attention is mainly pad to the application of capillary electrophoresis to polymerase chain reaction analysis, restriction fragment length polymorphism, single strand conformational polymorphism, variable number of tandem repeat, microsatellite analysis, hybridization technique, and monitoring of DNA-based drugs. Possible future trends are also discussed.