To whom it may concern
Hi!
Recently working on the microsatellite (STR) genotyping, using the Model
373A-Sequencer (Applied Biosystems), I encountered a problem of mistyping
the alleles due to some intrinsic properties of internal DNA size
standards. I proposed the idea of creating a novel DNA size "ladder",
based on the ability of partially complementary oligonucleotides to be
extended in PCR and result in DNA-concatemers with different number of
repeated motifs, the process, known under the name of concatemer chain
reaction (CCR) [White et al. Anal Biochem.1991; 199(2):184-190.]. I
succeeded to generate a ladder, that provides a high resolution within
the range of 30 - 210 bp, using specially designed set of primers and PCR
conditions. This result makes me enthusiastic, however the method is still
not free of problems.
I am seeking for interested researchers and groups, who would like to
share this study and provide fruitful ideas about this and any other
applications of CCR. For example, I successfully employed CCR for
generating a high-molecular weight triplet-DNA-concatemers, which were
used as control templates for repeated expanded DNA detection technique
(RED) [Schalling et al. Nature Genetics. 1993: 135-139].
I would also appreciate any information about any opened research
positions or jobs, involved above mentioned matters.
Please, contact me by e-mail address: alexey at helix.nih.gov.
Alexey Novoradovsky Ph.D.
