A deletion polymorphism in the human alpha-2-macroglobulin (A2M) gene.

Description: Alpha-2-macroglobulin is a major proteinase inhibitor in man. To study the bait domain, which defines the inhibitory spectrum of the protein and which is encoded by two exons (1), primers were designed to amplify the second exon. A 326 bp fragment was amplified by PCR using the intronic primers 5'-biotin-CTTTCCTTGATGACCCAAGCGCC-3' and 5'-GTTGAAAATAGTCAGCGACCTC-3'. 100 /tl containing 1 /ig human genomic DNA, 20 pmole of each primer, 200 /iM dNTPs in 50 mM KC1, 10 raM Tris-HCl (pH 8.3), 2 mM MgCl2, 0.01% gelatin and 2U Taq polymerase (30 cycles of PCR: 1 min at 94°C, 40 s at 59°C, 40 s at 72°C).