Modified differential display technique that eliminates radioactivity and decreases screening time

Several techniques are are available that detect variations in gene express ion between cellular populations. These include subtractive hybridization ( SH), differential colony hybridization (DCH) mid mRNA differential display, all based on the analysis of mRNA. The first two techniques, however, are limited because they require large amounts of mRNA for SH or several rounds of screening for DCH. Differential display overcomes both of these limitat ions. However, the conventional differential display technique is plagued b y false positives and is labor intensive. The identification of genes that are truly differentially expressed, therefore, becomes a formidable task. W e describe a modified differential display technique that overcomes the lim itations of the conventional technique. This new technique eliminates a sou rce of false positives, decreases the time required to screen a set of prim ers mid reduces the nse of radioactivity.