PADLOCK PROBES - CIRCULARIZING OLIGONUCLEOTIDES FOR LOCALIZED DNA DETECTION

Nucleotide sequence information derived from DNA segments of the human and other genomes is accumulating rapidly. However, it frequently pro ves difficult to use such short DNA segments to identify clones in gen omic libraries or fragments in blots of the whole genome or for in sit u analysis of chromosomes. Oligonucleotide probes, consisting of two t arget-complementary segments, connected by a linker sequence, were des igned. Upon recognition of the specific nucleic acid molecule the ends of the probes were joined through the action of a ligase, creating ci rcular DNA molecules catenated to the target sequence. These probes th us provide highly specific detection with minimal background.