Greetings, exact detection depends on the kind of mutation, however there are several options. First of all, some mutations (even the small one) looks differently under UV. But you need some practice to recognize them, and of course you need to know the inner variance of the WT to avoid false alarm. Another, and quite common way is the fluorescence quenching. Then you can compare the profiles of some aktinic light and its quenching protocol, for example using Linear discriminant analysis or just Mahalanobis distance from the WT. Some mutations causes changes in amount of chromozomes, and then you can label them by some fluorescence dye (beware most of them are quite toxic) and again do the comparison, classification, and so on.

Thank you very much.