Patent ID: 7252946

Claim:
A method of determining the amount of a target nucleic acid relative to the amount of a reference nucleic acid in a nucleic acid sample, comprising: A) incubating said sample under conditions that permit specific binding of first and second probes to said target and reference nucleic acids, respectively, wherein (i) said nucleic acid sample comprises said target and reference nucleic acids; (ii) said first probe comprises a target nucleic acid binding sequence and a second probe binding moiety; (iii) said second probe comprises a reference nucleic acid binding sequence and a first probe binding moiety; B) placing said first and second probes under conditions that permit the pairing of said probes, wherein said pairing comprises binding of said first probe binding moiety to said second probe binding moiety, to form paired probes; and C) detecting unpaired probe, wherein said detecting is indicative of a difference in the amount of target and reference nucleic acids in said sample.