A process for making the product of a nucleic acid amplification reaction incapable of being a target for further amplification, a diagnostic assay employing said process, a kit and a container suitable for carrying out said process or assay

摘要

A process for making the product of a nucleic acid amplification reaction, which amplification reaction employs one or more primer pairs, incapable of being a target for further amplification comprising: contacting the amplified product with an oligonucleotide capable of hybridizing to a stretch a nucleotides of the amplified product, said stretch being situated between the hybridisation sites of a pair of primers, under conditions which allow formation of a hybridisation complex between the oligonucleotide and the amplified product to occur, said oligonucleotide being modified in such a way that it protects the double stranded part of the hybridisation complex hybridized to the oligonucleotide from degradation, and subjecting the hybridisation complex to a degradative treatment under circumstances such that at least the part of the hybridisation complex capable of hybridizing to the primers is degraded. An assay for diagnosing the presence of a nucleic acid sequence in a sample comprising carrying out the afore-mentioned method and a kit for carrying out the afore-mentioned method.