Pyrene-Excimer Probes Based on the Hybridization Chain Reaction for the Detection of Nucleic Acids in Complex Biological Fluids

摘要

The sensitive and selective detection of nucleic acids is important in biological studies, clinical diagnostics, and biodefense applications. Since the DNA sequences of interest may be present in very small amounts, it is necessary to develop amplification techniques that enable the detection of trace levels of a specific sequence. Existing DNA-amplifica-tion techniques can be divided into two broad categories: thermal cycling and isothermal processing. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the most widely used thermal-cycling protocol for DNA amplification. The reaction proceeds exponentially, so that trace amounts of DNA can be amplified to detectable levels. Another thermal-cycling method is the ligase chain reaction (LCR). Because a thermostable ligase retains activity after multiple thermal cycles, the ligation products from one round can become the targets for the next round of ligation.