Cetus Corporation

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Norman Arnheim

Danute E Nitecki

Randall K Saiki

Henry A Erlich

Kary B Mullis

Francis P McCormick

Glenn T Horn

Gail L Wong

Robin Clark

Stephen J Scharf

James R Feramisco

The present invention is directed to a process for amplifying and detecting any target nucleic acid sequence contained in a nucleic acid or mixture thereof. The process comprises treating separate complementary strands of the nucleic acid with a molar excess of two oligonucleotide primers, extending the primers to form complementary primer extension products which act as templates for synthesizing the desired nucleic acid sequence, and detecting the sequence so amplified. The steps of the reaction may be carried out stepwise or simultaneously and can be repeated as often as desired. In addition, a specific nucleic acid sequence may be cloned into a vector by using primers to amplify the sequence, which contain restriction sites on their non-complementary ends, and a nucleic acid fragment may be prepared from an existing shorter fragment using the amplification process.

Process for amplifying, detecting, and/or cloning nucleic acid sequences

Antibodies exhibit specificity toward single amino acid differences between proteins. These antibodies may be produced by synthesizing a peptide of the appropriate amino acid sequence contained in the protein, immunizing a host with the peptide, and extracting sera from the host to obtain the antibodies. The antibodies and the desired protein are then immunoprecipitated under conditions of partial denaturation to expose the epitope of the protein. The antibodies may be used for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes.

Peptide antibodies and their use in detecting oncogene products

Process for amplifying, detecting, and/or-cloning nucleic acid sequences

Growing community of inventors

Piedmont, CA, United States of America

Norman Arnheim