A method for the detection of a target nucleic acid, probably a solid phase nucleic acid sample, comprises i) hybridising two separate oligonucleotide probes to it wherein at least one of the probes comprises two regions complementary to the target but separated by a non-complementary region; ii) ligating the two probes; iii) detecting the ligated product. A corresponding kit comprising the two probes is also disclosed. Preferably, the method may performed in the solid or liquid phase on a paraffin embedded section sample and preferably any RNA or DNA may be detected in situ, possible via quantitative nucleic acid amplification. The kit preferably comprises probes that hybridise to adjacent or adjoining regions of the same nucleic acid strand and the probes may comprise modified nucleic acids, Locked nucleic acids or peptide nucleic acids. The kit may further comprise a ligase enzyme, buffer polymerase and attenuator nucleic acid complementary to at least one hybridisation site.
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