Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and a kit for assessing mutability of a DNA sequence of interest. The method involves using a mutation hotspot sequence as a standard to determine whether the DNA sequence of interest is more or less mutable than the hotspot sequence. The mutation events are detected using a bacterial system in which the DNA sequence of interest and the mutation hotspot sequence are each linked in-frame to a reporter gene such as a killer gene or a color gene so that any nonsense or out-of-frame frame shift mutation in the DNA sequence of interest or the mutation hotspot sequence can be reflected by a loss of the function of the reporter gene product. The kit of present invention contains one or more of the various vectors that are useful for practicing the method disclosed herein.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and a kit for assessing mutability of a DNA sequence of interest. The method involves using a mutation hotspot sequence as a standard to determine whether the DNA sequence of interest is more or less mutable than the hotspot sequence. The mutation events are detected using a bacterial system in which the DNA sequence of interest and the mutation hotspot sequence are each linked in-frame to a reporter gene such as a killer gene or a color gene so that any nonsense or out-of-frame frame shit mutation in the DNA sequence of interest or the mutation hotspot sequence can be reflected by a loss of the function of the reporter gene product. The kit of present invention contains one or more of the various vectors that are useful for practicing the method disclosed herein.