Method of nucleic acid-differentiation and assay kit for nucleic acid differentiation

Abstract

A nucleic acid differentiating method is provided which involves using a primer having a detectable label introduced therein and a primer having a solid matrix-binding site introduced therein, amplifying a particular region of a target nucleic acid in a sample to thereby produce a labeled sample DNA, adding to this labeled sample DNA at least an equimolar amount of an unlabeled standard DNA to be evaluated for its sequence matching with the sample DNA, effecting competitive hybridization, and at the end of reaction, determining the label intensity of the hybridization product, for thereby determining the presence/absence of a mutant gene in the nucleic acid, the ratio of normal to mutant genes, or the sequence matching of a particular gene among a plurality of samples. An assay kit for differentiating nucleic acid by the differentiating method is also provided which includes target nucleic acid-amplifying primers comprising a primer having a detectable label introduced therein and a primer having a solid matrix-binding site introduced therein and an unlabeled DNA specimen to be evaluated for its matching with the amplified product amplified with the primers.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.