Short oligo probes for Northerns ??

[Claudia Sutton]

In article <31735013.458E at rmit.edu.au>, Patrick HJ Falckh
<p.falckh at rmit.edu.au> wrote:

> 'lo molbolians,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone has had experience in using short oligos 
> (20-25 base) to probe Northerns.  I've only previously used 250-500 
> base probes and was wondering if the shorter probes would function 
> adequately.
> 
> I'm considering using end-labelled PCR primers (20-25 bases) to do the 
> probing , which are degenerates for a class of enzymes; but would it 
> work.
> 
> Your input, and experience, would be most appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> -- 
>                                                                     
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Patrick,
I've used 25 mers, but they were not degenerate.  Also, my primers were
antisense to mitochondrial transcripts, and the RNA was from purified
mitos.  What the heck, give it a try, but be sure to use nitrocellulose as
the membrane.
My paper was in MCB, Sutton et al, in 1994 I think.
Claudia