CCR: a rapid and simple approach for mutation detection. Nucleic Acids Res 25: 2949–2951

We describe a simple approach for detecting known mutations in genomic DNA. The strategy entails a DNA amplification reaction that combines the use of thermo-stable DNA polymerase and ligase, and that has been designated the Combined Chain Reaction (CCR). CCR consists of four phases: denaturation, annealing, elongation and ligation. Unlike most PCR-based muta-tion detection systems it relies on mismatch between primer and template at the primer 5 ′ ends. It is rapid and simple, and requires neither the use of radioactivity, nor polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, nor autoradio-graphy for mutation detection at the single base-pair level. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allows the amplification o