The effects of the universal base dInosine were also compared with those of N wobbles. Thus, at the lower temperature, a dInosine-containing probe hybridized more strongly and, at the higher temperature, the N wobble probe hybridized more strongly. To understand how the highly degenerated probes, wobbN_21, wobbN_18 and wobb_N24, hybridized so well, we calculated the probability of randomly achieving an extension of the matching regions at the 5 0 and 3 0 ends of the wobbN_18 probe (Table 4 ). The probability that the closest N wobble to either the 5 0 or 3 0 end would be a perfect match is 0.5. Thus, 50% of the pool of degenerated probes have a 3 nt longer perfect match (12+9 or 9+12 matching nt at the 5 0 and 3 0 flanking regions) which, according to our results with non-degenerated probe/target combinations, should lead to rather good hybridization of the wobbN_18. In fact, wobbN_18 hybridization was similar in strength to that of the InflA probe to the 33%12F or 33%15nt targets. Furthermore, the probability of having several additional 5-nt matching regions in the central region is also high, probably giving rise to many more combinations in the same pool that matched There is a high probability of several additional matching regions of 5 nt in the central region, which will contribute to hybridization.