Patent ID: 7856322

Claim:
A method for determining specificity of a candidate probe sequence, wherein the method is executed on a specifically-programmed computer system, comprising: inputting a candidate probe sequence, a name of a species to be detected by the candidate probe sequence, and a name of a biological taxonomic category; extracting gene sequences from a gene sequence database, wherein the gene sequence database comprises gene sequence related information, wherein each extracted gene sequence comprises a sequence homologous with the candidate probe sequence; identifying a name of a species corresponding to each extracted gene sequence using a taxonomy database, wherein the taxonomy database comprises biological taxonomic information and gene sequence information; extracting, from among the identified names, the input name of the species to be detected if present; extracting, from among the identified names, names for each species included in the input biological taxonomic category; for each extracted species name, evaluating a degree of homology between the sequence in its extracted gene sequence homologous to the candidate probe sequence; outputting the extracted name of the species to be detected if present, the extracted names for each species included in the input biological taxonomic category, and the degree of homology for each extracted species name; and then: selecting the candidate probe sequence as a probe sequence for the input species to be detected if the input name of the species to be detected is output and the outputted names for each species included in the input biological taxonomic category does not include the names of species other than the input species to be detected; discarding the candidate probe sequence as a probe sequence for the input species to be detected if the input name of the species to be detected is output but the outputted names for each species included in the input biological taxonomic category includes the names of species other than the input species to be detected; or selecting the candidate probe sequence as a probe sequence if the input name of the species to be detected is output, the outputted names for each species included in the biological taxonomic category includes names of species other than the input species to be detected, and it is unnecessary to distinguish between the input species to be detected and the outputted names for each species included in the biological taxonomic category.