ABSTRACT
Detection of antigens or antibodies in patient samples are widely used methods in diagnostics. However, these methods tend to lack in speed and/or sensitivity or they are dependent on the patient’s ability to form specific antibodies. Purification of target DNA prior to amplification is therefore of great importance. In this chapter we describe some general properties of peptide nucleic acid. Based upon these data, we have designed protocols for PNA-based DNA purification techniques and we demonstrate the use of these protocols in molecular diagnostics. Hybridisation experiments have been performed with PNA oligos having the glycine moiety substituted by other amino acid residues. All substitutions were characterized by lower affinity of the PNA for the complementary DNA oligo. Urine samples were centrifuged in order to pellet Chlamydia bacteria. The genomic DNA was released by heating and was then hybridised to a biotinylated PNA oligo specific for a conserved region of the gene encoding the major outer membrane protein.
