Patent ID: 7455966

Claim:
A method of monitoring water contamination, comprising, (a) combining nucleic acid molecules having one or more nucleic acid sequences and that are from at least one sample of water, with multiple oligonucleotide primers, wherein the primers comprise randomized nucleotide sequences; (b) amplifying the water sample nucleic acid molecules that hybridize to the randomized primers by subjecting the mixture of combined primers and sample nucleic acid molecules to a plurality of cycles of the polymerase chain reaction to generate an amplification product comprising a population of amplified nucleic acid molecules, wherein the primers are sufficiently randomized such that substantially all of the nucleic acid sequences of a biological entity in the water sample are represented among the amplified nucleic acid molecules; (c) hybridizing the amplified nucleic acid molecules to an array of nucleic acid molecules having predetermined nucleic acid sequences, such that at least a portion of the amplification product hybridizes to the array, and wherein the array comprises redundancies comprising several distinct nucleic acid sequences from the same biological entity; and (d) detecting the amplified nucleic acid molecules that hybridize to the array and relating the detected amplified nucleic acid molecules to at least one biological entity in the at least one sample of water.