CHAPTER 1 NUCLEIC ACIDS HYBRIDIZATION: POTENTIALS AND LIMITATIONS

Abstract: Several nucleic acids hybridization-based approaches, such as microarray, competi-tive genomic, and Southern or Northern blot hybridization, have become popular tools for specialists in biochemistry and in biomedicine, and are now in routine use. However, the potential of in-solution nucleic acids hybridization-based experimen-tal techniques seems to be underestimated now. Examples are subtractive hybridiza-tion (SH), which allows one to efficiently find differences in genomic DNAs or in cDNA samples; coincidence cloning (CC), which, on the contrary, makes it possible to identify sequences that are present in all the samples under comparison; cDNA normalization, which is used for the smoothing of rare and frequent transcript con-tent in cDNA libraries; and TILLING approach, which has demonstrated its great potential for the reverse genetics studies. Finally, several techniques are aimed at the large-scale recovery of DNA polymorphisms, including single nucleotide polymor-phisms (SNPs). This book will focus on the above-mentioned and other recent developments in the area of nucleic acids hybridization, including attempts to improve its specificity. In this introductory chapter, I have tried to briefly character-ize the current state of the art in in-solution nucleic acids hybridization techniques, and to define their major principles and applications. The advantages and short-comings of these techniques will be discussed here