Hybridization properties of immobilized nucleic acids.

The 5'-end attachment of oligonucleotides to dextran supports facilitates the study of the hybridization properties of an immobilized oligonucleotide system. The hybridization properties which were studied include: hybridization capacity and kinetics, hybridization-complex stability, and reagents influencing hybridization efficiency. Results of these experiments reveal that the hybridization efficiencies of support-bound oligonucleotides were 75-80% and 40-50% for single-stranded oligonucleotide targets and long double-stranded targets, respectively. These hybridization efficiencies are dependent upon prehybridizing the support-bound oligonucleotides with dextran sulfate. In addition, comparisons of the relative hybridization efficiencies of the support-bound oligonucleotide and nitrocellulose-based systems have been made which indicate a retention of 13-28% of target sequences on the filters and a detection efficiency of 8-20%.