Patent ID: 7138506

Claim:
A universal microarray comprising a solid substrate and a plurality of oligonucleotide probes wherein the plurality of oligonucleotide probes are bound on said substrate in a plurality of spots, wherein a pool of oligonucleotide probes of said plurality of oligonucleotide probes is bound to each spot of the microarray, each oligonucleotide of said plurality of oligonucleotide probes has the form: B-C-D wherein a) portion B is a unique z-mer comprising from 5 to 8 nucleotide bases such that all 4 Z permutations of A, G, C, and T are represented in said plurality of oligonucleotide probes; b) portion C is a variable x-mer comprising from 1 to 5 nucleotide bases such that all 4 X permutations of A, G, C, and T are represented in said plurality of oligonucleotide probes; c) portion D is a universal n-mer comprising from 5 to 8 nucleotide bases that is the same for every probe; and wherein a pool of oligonucleotide probes contains oligonucleotide probes wherein only one of said 4 Z permutation of B is present and all 4 X permutations of C are present in about equal concentrations.