Patent ID: 7135285

Claim:
A method for determining whether a DNA sample contains a gene family member, said method comprising providing a polynucleotide array comprising a polynucleotide probe that defines a reference nucleotide sequence from the gene family member wherein the reference nucleotide sequence codes for an amino acid sequence and the array further comprises a probe set defining a degenerate set of nucleotide sequences encoding said amino acid sequence; wherein the nucleotide sequences encoding said amino acid sequence are between 15 and 30 nucleotides in length, and wherein the probe set defining said degenerate set comprises at least 25% of the nucleotide sequences encoding said degenerate set; hybridizing said DNA sample to said probe array; detecting the presence or absence of a sequence in said DNA sample hybridizing to said probe set defining said degenerate set of nucleotide sequences; and determining whether the DNA in the sample contains a member of the gene family from the presence or absence of a sequence hybridizing to said probe set defining said degenerate set of nucleotide sequences.