Blocking Agents Comprising Non-Natural Nucleic Acids and Detection Methods Using such Blocking Agents

Abstract

This invention relates to nucleic acid analog blocking agents that may reduce nonspecific interactions between components of a biological or chemical detection assay. The blocking agents may help to reduce the background observed in biological or chemical detection assays, such as in situ assays and blots, and may thus enhance the signal to noise in the assays. The invention also encompasses sets of nucleic acid analog segments, for instance, made from PNA and/or non-natural bases, which may act as blocking agents and/or detection reagents, reagent kits containing those sets, and related methods of detection. In some embodiments, the blocking agents are designed such that they block one or more sets of complementary strands of nucleic acids on a detection reagent or in a sample, but do not hybridize to each other. In some embodiments, the blocking agents may block genomic repeat sequences such as one or more of Alu repeats, Kpn repeats, di-nucleotide repeats, tri-nucleotide repeats, penta-nucleotide repeats, and hexa-nucleotide repeats.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.