Patent ID: 7439016

Claim:
A method of detecting a target nucleic acid comprising: a) hybridizing a single-stranded target nucleic acid to a capture sequence probe and a signal sequence probe to form a hybrid complex comprising double-stranded hybrids between said capture sequence probe and a portion of the target nucleic acid, and between said signal sequence probe and a portion of the target nucleic acid, wherein the capture sequence probe and the signal sequence probe hybridize to non-overlapping regions within the target nucleic acid and do not hybridize to each other, wherein the signal sequence probe is unlabeled; and b) adding a blocker probe to the hybridization reaction, wherein said blocker probe hybridizes to excess non-hybridized capture sequence probes; c) capturing the capture sequence probe:target portion of said hybrid complex to form a bound hybrid complex; and d) detecting the bound double-stranded hybrid complex, thereby detecting the target nucleic acid.