Methods and compositions for transcription-based nucleic acid amplification

Abstract

Methods for isothermal exponential amplification of a target polynucleotide are disclosed. The methods employ two transcription modules, the first module providing linear amplification resulting in RNA transcripts, and a second module providing for further (generally cyclical) amplification resulting in more RNA transcripts. In one aspect, the amplification of the first module is composite primer based. In a second aspect, the amplification of the first module is based on target switching to generate a primer extension product comprising a promoter sequence. In all aspects, the RNA transcripts of the first transcription module are subjected to further amplification by creating an intermediate product comprising a double stranded promoter region from which transcription can occur. The invention further provides compositions and kits for practicing said methods, as well as methods which use the amplification results.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.