Patent ID: 6884586
Filing Date: 2005-04-26
Classification: B01J,C12Q,C40B

Abstract:
1. A method for characterizing the methylation state of a target nucleic acid, comprising: a. treating the target nucleic acid with a modifying agent that differentially modifies a nucleotide based on the methylation state of the nucleotide to provide a treated target nucleic acid; b. providing a template double-stranded nucleic acid that comprises a nicking agent recognition sequence (NARS) and a portion of the treated target nucleic acid or an amplification product thereof if the target nucleic acid is single-stranded or a portion of one strand of the treated target nucleic acid if the target nucleic acid is double-stranded; c. amplifying a single-stranded nucleic acid fragment in the presence of a nicking agent (NA) that recognizes the NARS, a DNA polymerase, and one or more deoxynucleoside triphosphate(s), wherein the amplifying uses a portion of the template double-stranded nucleic acid as a template, wherein the single-stranded nucleic acid fragment contains no more than 20 nucleotides; and d. characterizing the single-stranded nucleic acid fragment and thereby characterizing the methylation state of the target nucleic acid.