DNA MOLECULAR COMBING - PHYSICAL MAPPING AND GENETIC DIAGNOSTICS

Molecular combing allows for the producible preparation of surfaces co vered with a high density of DNA molecules, parallel to one another an d stretched with a constant and uniform yield. Standard hybridization and fluorescent detection techniques make it a powerful tool for high resolution physical mapping of clones, allowing to raise ambiguities r emaining in restriction maps, but also to avoid building such maps. Fi nally, in genetic diagnostics, detection and precise measurements of m icro-deletions a few tens of kilobases show the possibilities of the t echnique for human genome studies.