Patent ID: 8017322

Claim:
A method of preparing a database for use in identification of an organism comprising: a) aligning a plurality of nucleic acid gene sequences of a plurality of organisms of known identity using a computer; b) analyzing said plurality of sequences for regions of conservation; c) identifying a plurality of primer binding sites within said regions of conservation for priming and obtaining one or more amplifiable regions within said plurality of sequences; d) determining the base compositions of said one or more amplifiable regions for members of said plurality of known organisms wherein said base composition identifies the number of, but not the nucleic acid gene sequence order of, A residues, C residues, T residues, G residues, U residues, analogs thereof and/or mass tag residues thereof in said amplifiable region to obtain a plurality of base compositions of amplifiable regions indexed to the identity of one or more members of said plurality of organisms of known identity; and e) populating a computer or written database with said base compositions and indexed identities of members of said plurality of organisms obtained in step d) wherein said database is not populated with nucleic acid gene sequences, or gene sequence fragments, present in said plurality of organisms.