Imbalance of G and C contents influences the sensitivity of single-strand conformation polymorphism.

After analyzing chicken ATPase6 by single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), we observed two band species. But based on the sequencing results, we found two mutations, and one of them was not detected by SSCP. The primer P2 was designed to detect the additional mutation site, which was not detected by the original primer. And the P2 SSCP results then agreed with the sequencing data. Analysis of the percent of G and C bases and secondary structures indicated that it might be caused by a similar secondary structure which might be resulting from serious imbalance of G and C contents.