Patent ID: 11352658

Abstract:
The present invention relates to a method for selecting a target region of interest (ROI) in a target nucleic acid molecule using a nucleic acid probe comprising a 3′ sequence capable of hybridising to a target nucleic acid molecule and acting as a primer for the production of a complement of the target ROI (i.e. by target templated extension of the primer), and a sequence capable of templating the circularisation and ligation of the extended probe comprising the reverse complement of the target ROI and a portion of the probe. The circularised molecule thus obtained contains the reverse complement of the target ROI and may be subjected to further analysis and/or amplification etc. The probe may be provided as an oligonucleotide comprising a stem-loop structure or as a partially double-stranded construct and comprises a single-stranded 3′ end region containing the target-binding site. A second binding site provided in the probe serves as the ligation template for circularisation, and the stem-loop structure, if present, is cleaved to render the second binding site available for hybridisation to the target complement. Also provided are probes and kits for carrying out such a method.