A Simple, Rapid, and Cost-Effective PCR Procedure for Detection of NUDT15 Gene Variants in Vietnamese Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

 The variants impact thiopurine dose selection in acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. The ability to rapidly detect variants is important in clinical practice. This study aims to develop a simple polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedure for detecting variants in Vietnamese patients.  Sanger sequencing was used to determine variants from 200 patients. We designed primers and optimized the PCR procedure for detection of wild-type and variant alleles and compared with Sanger sequencing results.  The inserted variant c.55_56insGAGTCG was detected by differences in size through conventional PCR. The tetra-primer amplification refractory mutation system PCR was successful in detecting two variations, c.52G > A and c.415C > T. The sensitivity and specificity of PCR procedure achieved 100% when compared to 200 Sanger sequencing results.  Our PCR procedure is suitable for replacing Sanger sequencing to detect the variants in clinical setting.