Surveyor Nuclease (Transgenomic, Inc, Omaha, NE, USA) is a plant (celery) endonuclease that cleaves double-stranded DNA at mismatch sites, including SNPs, insertions, and deletions. A novel PCR-based mutation detection method has been developed by Transgenomic. The process has four main steps: 1) amplification of target DNAs from patients and healthy controls; 2) hybridization of normal DNA with the DNA of the patient; 3) digestion of homo- and heteroduplexes by Surveyor Nuclease; and finally, 4) separation of cleavage products by standard gel electrophoresis or high-pressure liquid chromatography (Figure 7). This method may be promising in molecular diagnosis, and it has been successfully used for the identification of genetic-based disorders.183–185
