Patent ID: 8034554

Claim:
A method of detecting the presence of a target nucleic acid in a sample comprising the steps of: a) providing a biological sample containing a target nucleic acid, b) mixing said sample with a nucleic acid hairpin capture probe, wherein said hairpin capture probe has a structure containing an internal target complementary sequence of 20 nucleobases that is flanked on one of its 5′ end or its 3′ end by a homopolymeric nucleic acid capture sequence consisting of polyA or polyT sequence and on its other end by a terminal nucleic acid sequence, wherein under hybridizing conditions said capture sequence hybridizes to said terminal sequence forming an intramolecular double-stranded stem portion of said hairpin capture probe; and said target-complementary sequence forms a single-stranded loop portion of said hairpin capture probe; wherein the stem portion of the hairpin structure is at least from 20 to 30 nucleobases in length and wherein the loop portion of the hairpin is equal to or shorter than the stem section, and wherein said terminal region and said capture region are configured to not hybridize to said target nucleic acid, and c) specifically hybridizing said target-complementary sequence to a target sequence in said target nucleic acid, d) binding said capture sequence to a complementary immobilized probe sequence, thereby forming a capture hybrid made up of said target nucleic acid, said capture probe, and said immobilized probe attached to said capture support, e) separating said capture hybrid attached to said capture support from sample components, f) releasing said target nucleic acid from said capture hybrid, g) hybridizing a detection probe to said target nucleic acid to form a detection hybrid, and h) detecting a signal produced in a homogeneous reaction from said detection hybrid to indicate the presence of said target nucleic acid.