Method for direct identification of few nucleic acid strands

US5807677A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Föderung der Wissenschaften e.V. · US

Inventors

• Manfred Eigen · Göttingen, DE
• Rudolf Rigler · Djursholm, SE

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 19, 1995
• Grant date: Sep 15, 1998
• Expiry date: Dec 19, 2015

Classification

• Technology area (CPC C): Chemistry; Metallurgy
• CPC primary: C12Q1/6816
• WIPO field: Biotechnology
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

A method for the direct identification of few, preferably single nucleic acid strands of a specific target sequence (10) in a test solution comprising the following steps: PA1 a) Preparation of a reference solution with a mixture (11) of different, short primers (12, 13, 14) each with a so-called antisense-sequence (a', b', c') complementary to a section (a, b, c) of the target sequence (10), and marked with one or more dye molecules, PA1 b) mixture of the reference solution with the test solution and incubation of this mixture (15) under conditions allowing hybridization of the primers (12, 1, 14) with the nucleic acid strands to be identified, and then PA1 c) identification of the target sequence (10) in the incubated solution (15) by discriminating few, preferably one of the nucleic acid strands to be identified to which one or more primers (12, 13, 14) have hybridized against the background of the non-hybridized primers (12, 13, 14).