Oligo 4.0-s program

[Klaus.Matthaei at ANU.EDU.AU]

>Dear colleagues,
>If somebody , as I do, uses Oligo 4.0-s to design his primers,
>could he be so kind as to share its opinions about this question?:
>Is just my impression or the program is extraordinarily, maybe
>excessively severe? If I do a combined search, 9 time out of ten
>the program does not find two primers which could give a reasonable
>probability of success. I use the program default parameters.
>Thanks in advance for your answers.


I think that the program is too stringent.  In my favourite gene IL-5,
Oligo 4 cannot find me ANY what it calls good primers yet I have oodles of
primers in that gene that work just fine.  So I have stopped using oligo 4
and design by eye using some general rules and then run them agains the
gene using Amplify.  If Amplify says they are OK they always work.

Cheers, Klaus

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Klaus Matthaei
Head, Gene Targeting                            |           |
The John Curtin School of Medical Research      |  _--_|\   |
The Australian National University              | /      \  |
Snail mail: Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia       | \_.--._/<<|
E-mail: Klaus.Matthaei at anu.edu.au               |       v   |
Landline: 61 6 249 3782 fx: 61 6 249 0415
                        "Sometimes I'm the Louisville slugger"
                        "Sometimes I'm the Ball"
                                Dire Straits
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