Application of peptide nucleic acid probes in microbiological diagnostication

Abstract:

Polyamide nucleic acid (PNA) molecules are DNA mimics with neutral acrylamide bonds as tskeleton. PNA could combine specifically with targeting DNA and the PNA-DNA duplex exhibits higher thermal stability than the corresponding DNA-DNA duplex. Due to their specific structure and characteristics, PNA probes have recently been developed and applied to a variety of microbiological diagnostication fields, such as food, environmental and clinical assay, which go above and beyond the possibility of DNA probes. Here we summarize the recent application of PNA probes in the realm of microbiological diagnostication.