BAR CODING AND INDENTIFYING NUCLEIC ACIDS USING A LIMITED NUMBER OF PROBES AND LOW STRINGENCY CONDITIONS

摘要

The invention relates generally to methods for identifying and quantitating the presence of nucleic acids of interest. The methods involve the hybridization of nucleic acids of interest to probes under relatively non-stringent conditions and use patterns of relative binding intensity to provide useful information. The methods allow for the use of far fewer probes than previous techniques, and do not require prior knowledge of the sequence of a nucleic acid of interest to detect its presence in a sample. The methods of the invention allow for the comparative assessment of the expression of genes in samples from different sources (for example, from different tissues or cell types, disease states, or development stages).