Patent ID: 6964848

Claim:
A method of detecting a target polynucleotide which comprises the steps of: (a) contacting a target polynucleotide having a first portion and a second portion immediately contiguous to one another with: (i) an invader oligonucleotide, at least a part of which is capable of specifically hybridizing to the first portion of the target polynucleotide; (ii) a probe oligonucleotide comprising a first region that is capable of specifically hybridizing to the second portion of the target polynucleotide and a flap region located adjacent to the first region; and (iii) a reagent that is capable of cleaving the flap region of the probe oligonucleotide when the probe oligonucleotide is hybridized to the second portion of the target polynucleotide and the invader oligonucleotide is hybridized to the first portion of the polynucleotide; under conditions such that the cleaved flap region of the probe oligonucleotide and the reagent can come into contact with a reporter precursor to which the flap region of the probe oligonucleotide is capable of hybridizing to form a complex that can be cleaved by the reagent to provide a reporter capable of being detected; (b) obtaining a data set (t, S(t)), wherein t is time and S(t) is signal as a function of time, by detecting the reporter at a plurality of times; and (c) transforming (t, S(t)) to provide a transformed data set (t*, S*(t*)) wherein t* and S*(t*) have minima of zero and maxima of unity, and determining whether the transformed data set exhibits non-linear behavior; wherein the target polynucleotide is detected if the transformed data set exhibits non-linear behavior.