If a fragment is amplified from one population, but not from another, it should represent a gene that is differentially expressed between the two populations. Differential display therefore potentially represented a very powerful tool for gene discovery. Our experience of the technique and that of others, demonstrated that it did not fulfil these criteria. Fragments generated did not originate specifically from the 3' end of genes and many came from priming between arbitrary or anchored T-primer, only. Bands on the display gel often contain more than one sequence.
Reproducibility is low as the banding pattern is prone to variation and false positives.
The technique can and has been used to identify new genes, but for the reasons stated above we did not feel that it was suitable for our purposes and we abandoned our efforts with differential display. This approach potentially has many inherent advantages over differential display. We are currently developing the technique, initial results are very encouraging. A.B. Differential display of eukaryotic messenger RNA by means of the polymerase chain reaction.