Direct assessment of cytochrome P450 2D6 genotypes by high-resolution melting analysis and DNA sequencing

•Only one polymerase chain reaction was used to characterize the CYP2D6 polymorphism.•Five exons were screened by HRM analysis.•The other four exons were directly analyzed by DNA sequencing.•This method is quick and cost-effective, and is suitable for clinical application.

We developed a CYP2D6 genotyping method that required only one polymerase chain reaction (PCR) followed by a high-resolution melting curve analysis (HRM) and DNA sequencing. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples obtained from 100 normal individuals. From the HRM analysis using three fragments of amplicons (exons 1, 6, and 9), we successfully identified four common CYP2D6 gene polymorphisms (100C>T, 2850C>T, 2988G>A, and 4180G>C). Exons 3 and 7 were also screened by HRM analysis. The heteroduplexes, wild-type homoduplexes, and homoduplexes of compound mutations showed distinct melting plots. The other four exons (exons 2, 4, 5, and 8) were directly analyzed by DNA sequencing. In conclusion, we developed an HRM and DNA sequencing based method to assess the CYP2D6 gene directly without the need for nested PCR. This method is quick and cost-effective; it reduces the chance of PCR contamination and is suitable for clinical application.