A method of detecting the presence of living or dead microorganisms and viruses in a sample comprises adding to a predetermined volume of a sample comprising nucleic acid-containing microbe(s) and/or virus(es), known amounts of a pair of primers binding to sequences upstream and downstream to a universal or specific microbial and/or viral nucleic acid sequence and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents, cycling the mixture to amplify the universal or specific microbial and/or viral nucleic acid sequence; adding a polynucleotide comprising a DNA internal segment that is hybridizably complementary to at least a portion of the universal or specific nucleic acid sequence; and a first and second DNA arm segment adjoining the DNA internal segment, the first DNA arm segment ending in a 5' terminus and the second DNA arm segment ending in a 3' terminus, the arm segments comprising nucleotide sequences such that they are hybridizably complementary to one another. Also disclosed are polynucleotides and kits useful for practicing the method.
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