Patent ID: 8691509

Claim:
A method for amplifying a plurality of target nucleic acids, the method comprising: preparing an amplification mixture for each target nucleic acid, said amplification mixture comprising: a forward primer comprising a target-specific portion; a reverse primer comprising a target-specific portion, wherein the forward primer additionally comprises a first nucleotide tag and/or the reverse primer additionally comprises a second nucleotide tag, wherein the forward and reverse primers anneal to sites in the target nucleic acids that are separated by intervening target nucleotide sequence; and at least one barcode primer comprising a barcode nucleotide sequence and a first or second nucleotide tag-specific portion, wherein the concentration of the barcode primer is at least-5 fold the concentration of the forward or reverse primer, wherein more than 100 amplification mixtures are prepared; subjecting each amplification mixture to amplification to produce a plurality of target amplicons comprising tagged target nucleotide sequences, each comprising first and/or second nucleotide tags flanking the target nucleotide sequence, and at least one barcode nucleotide sequence at the 5′ or 3′ end of the target amplicon, wherein at least 50 percent of the target amplicons are present at greater than 50 percent of the average number of copies of target amplicons and less than 2-fold the average number of copies of target amplicons.