Patent ID: 6865491

Claim:
A method for obtaining one or more candidate nucleotide sequences, the candidate nucleotide sequences being indicative of a sequence of a target polynucleotide molecule T, T producing a hybridization signal I ({right arrow over (x)}) upon incubating T with a polynucleotide {right arrow over (x)} for each polynucleotide {right arrow over (x)} in a set E of polynucleotides, the method comprising the steps of: (a) for each polynucleotide {right arrow over (x)} in the set E of polynucleotides, obtaining a probability P o ({right arrow over (x)}) of the hybridization signal I ({right arrow over (x)}) when the sequence {right arrow over (x)} is not complementary to a subsequence of T and a probability P 1 ({right arrow over (x)}) of the hybridization signal when the sequence {right arrow over (x)} is complementary to a subsequence of T; so as to obtain a probabilistic spectrum (PS) of T; (b) assigning a score to each of a plurality of candidate nucleotide sequences, the score being obtained in a calculation using the probablistic spectrum and at least one reference nucleotide sequence H, the score being indicative of the candidate nucleotide sequence being a variant of H and furthermore being indicative of the probability that the candidate would give rise to the hybridization signal I ({right arrow over (x)}); and (c) selecting one or more candidate nucleotide sequences having a maximal score that is indicative of the sequence of the target polynucleotide molecule T.