Direct detection of synthetic and biologically generated double-stranded DNA by MALDI-TOF MS

Abstract A synthetic 50-mer DNA was mixed at room temperature with a non-complementary or a complementary 27-mer and analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The former resulted in negligible signals from a 27-/50- mer heterodimer, for the latter this was a dominant peak, consistent with maintaining Watson-Crick interactions in the gas phase. Double stranded DNA derived from an enzymatic digestion of a 252-base-pair polymerase chain reaction product when prepared at room temperature yielded very little specific double stranded DNA, but sample preparation at reduced temperature resulted in spectra dominated by the expected heterodimer signals with no random (i.e. non-Watson-Crick) dimers. As a DNA diagnostics genotyping application, apolipoprotein-E alleles were easily distinguished considering only the masses of their double stranded DNA digest fragments.