In recent years, the features of the TaqMan probes have
been considered for the detection of mutations and polymorphisms
associated with several diseases such as cancer
(14), dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (15), beta thalassemia
(16), among others. In this study, the 3-bp deletion
in the GSTM3 gene was identified by our TaqMan allelic
discrimination method. The real-time PCR procedure takes
an approximate time of 3 h until results are observed in the
allelic discrimination plot. The estimated cost of each sample
is |$2.5e3 USD. This method is faster, more economic
and simpler compared with the regular PCR-RFLP procedure
currently used to detect this polymorphism. Results
showed high specificity because fluorescence was detected
whether for one allele in homozygous samples and for both
in heterozygous samples.