Selection of oligonucleotide probes for protein coding sequences

MOTIVATION: Large arrays of oligonucleotide probes have become popular tools for analyzing RNA expression. However to date most oligo collections contain poorly validated sequences or are biased toward untranslated regions (UTRs). Here we present a strategy for picking oligos for microarrays that focus on a design universe consisting exclusively of protein coding regions. We describe the constraints in oligo design that are imposed by this strategy, as well as a software tool that allows the strategy to be applied broadly. RESULT: In this work we sequentially apply a variety of simple filters to candidate sequences for oligo probes. The primary filter is a rejection of probes that contain contiguous identity with any other sequence in the sample universe that exceeds a pre-established threshold length. We find that rejection of oligos that contain 15 bases of perfect match with other sequences in the design universe is a feasible strategy for oligo selection for probe arrays designed to interrogate mammalian RNA populations. Filters to remove sequences with low complexity and predicted poor probe accessibility narrow the candidate probe space only slightly. Rejection based on global sequence alignment is performed as a secondary, rather than primary, test, leading to an algorithm that is computationally efficient. Splice isoforms pose unique challenges and we find that isoform prevalence will for the most part have to be determined by analysis of the patterns of hybridization of partially redundant oligonucleotides. AVAILABILITY: The oligo design program OligoPicker and its source code are freely available at our website.     

PRISE2: Software for designing sequence-selective PCR primers and probes

Background

PRISE2 is a new software tool for designing sequence-selective PCR primers and probes. To achieve high level of selectivity, PRISE2 allows the user to specify a collection of target sequences that the primers are supposed to amplify, as well as non-target sequences that should not be amplified. The program emphasizes primer selectivity on the 3’ end, which is crucial for selective amplification of conserved sequences such as rRNA genes. In PRISE2, users can specify desired properties of primers, including length, GC content, and others. They can interactively manipulate the list of candidate primers, to choose primer pairs that are best suited for their needs. A similar process is used to add probes to selected primer pairs. More advanced features include, for example, the capability to define a custom mismatch penalty function. PRISE2 is equipped with a graphical, user-friendly interface, and it runs on Windows, Macintosh or Linux machines.

Results

PRISE2 has been tested on two very similar strains of the fungus Dactylella oviparasitica, and it was able to create highly selective primers and probes for each of them, demonstrating the ability to create useful sequence-selective assays.

Conclusions

PRISE2 is a user-friendly, interactive software package that can be used to design high-quality selective primers for PCR experiments. In addition to choosing primers, users have an option to add a probe to any selected primer pair, enabling design of Taqman and other primer-probe based assays. PRISE2 can also be used to design probes for FISH and other hybridization-based assays.     

PRISE (PRImer SElector): software for designing sequence-selective PCR primers

This report presents PRImer Selector (PRISE), a new software package that implements several features that improve and streamline the design of sequence-selective PCR primers. The PRISE design process involves two main steps. In the first step, target and non-target DNA sequences are identified. In the second step, primers are designed to amplify target (but not non-target) sequences. One important feature of PRISE is that it automates the task of placing primer-template mismatches at the 3' end of the primers - a property that is crucial for sequence selectivity. Once a list of candidate primers has been produced, sorting tools in PRISE speed up the selection process by allowing a user to sort the primers by properties such as amplicon length, GC content and sequence selectivity. PRISE can be used to design primers with a range of specificities, targeting individual sequences as well as diverse assemblages of genes. PRISE also allows user-defined primers to be analyzed, enabling their properties to be examined in relation to target and non-target sequences. The utility of PRISE was demonstrated by using it to design sequence-selective PCR primers for an rRNA gene from the fungus Pochonia chlamydosporia.     

Fas基因mRNA反义靶点筛选和体外验证

应用PARASS(poly-A anchored RNA accessible sites screening) 技术筛选Fas基因mRNA 获得3个潜在反义作用靶点,靶点1、2、3分别位于Fas基因297nt-317nt、619nt-639nt和662nt-682nt。设计了对应靶点的反义寡核苷酸A1、A2、A3,和10-23型DNAzyme D1、D2和D3。将反义寡核苷酸和Fas基因RNA结合再加入RNase H进行反应,10-23型DNAzyme则直接与Fas基因RNA作用,结果表明：3个靶点的反义寡核苷酸组及DNAzyme均能降解Fas基因RNA,为有效靶点,其靶点反应优势次序为靶点3>靶点1>靶点2;而非靶点对照组和有效靶点突变了2个碱基的对照组均没有反应。靶点2和靶点3与ISIS公司经过多次实验筛选到的Fas反义作用靶点位置基本相同,表明PARASS技术的有效性和可靠性。获得的有效反义寡核苷酸和DNAzyme为后续研究打下基础。     

Guidelines for incorporating non-perfectly matched oligonucleotides into target-specific hybridization probes for a DNA microarray

Sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes play a crucial role in hybridization techniques including PCR, DNA microarray and RNA interference. Once the entire genome becomes the search space for target genes/genomic sequences, however, cross-hybridization to non-target sequences becomes a problem. Large gene families with significant similarity among family members, such as the P450s, are particularly problematic. Additionally, accurate single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection depends on probes that can distinguish between nearly identical sequences. Conventional oligonucleotide probes that are perfectly matched to target genes/genomic sequences are often unsuitable in such cases. Carefully designed mismatches can be used to decrease cross-hybridization potential, but implementing all possible mismatch probes is impractical. Our study provides guidelines for designing non-perfectly matched DNA probes to target DNA sequences as desired throughout the genome. These guidelines are based on the analysis of hybridization data between perfectly matched and non-perfectly matched DNA sequences (single-point or double-point mutated) calculated in silico. Large changes in hybridization temperature predicted by these guidelines for non-matched oligonucleotides fit independent experimental data very well. Applying the guidelines to find oligonucleotide microarray probes for P450 genes, we confirmed the ability of our point mutation method to differentiate the individual genes in terms of thermodynamic calculations of hybridization and sequence similarity.     

TAMS technology for simple and efficient in vitro site-directed mutagenesis and mutant screening

Site-directed mutagenesis is an invaluable tool for functional studies and genetic engineering. However, most current protocols require the target DNA to be cloned into a plasmid vector before mutagenesis can be performed, and none of them are effective for multiple-site mutagenesis. We now describe a method that allows mutagenesis on any DNA template (eg. cDNA, genomic DNA and plasmid DNA), and is highly efficient for multiple-site mutagenesis (up to 100%). The technology takes advantage of the requirement that, in order for DNA polymerases to elongate, it is crucial that the 3′ sequences of the primers match the template perfectly. When two outer mutagenic oligos are incorporated together with the desired mutagenic oligos into the newly synthesised mutant strand, they serve as anchors for PCR primers which have 3′ sequences matching the mutated nucleotides, thus amplifying the mutant strand only. The same principle can also be used for mutant screening.     

The domain-specific probe EUB338 is insufficient for the detection of all Bacteria: development and evaluation of a more comprehensive probe set.

In situ hybridization with rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes has become a widely applied tool for direct analysis of microbial population structures of complex natural and engineered systems. In such studies probe EUB338 (AMANN et al., 1990) is routinely used to quantify members of the domain Bacteria with a sufficiently high cellular ribosome content. Recent reevaluations of probe EUB338 coverage based on all publicly available 16S rRNA sequences, however, indicated that important bacterial phyla, most notably the Planctomycetales and Verrucomicrobia, are missed by this probe. We therefore designed and evaluated two supplementary versions (EUB338-II and EUB338-III) of probe EUB338 for in situ detection of most of those phyla not detected with probe EUB338. In situ dissociation curves with target and non-target organisms were recorded under increasing stringency to optimize hybridization conditions. For that purpose a digital image software routine was developed. In situ hybridization of a complex biofilm community with the three EUB338 probes demonstrated the presence of significant numbers of probe EUB338-II and EUB338-III target organisms. The application of EUB338, EUB338-II and EUB338-III should allow a more accurate quantification of members of the domain Bacteria in future molecular ecological studies.     

Skip the alignment: degenerate, multiplex primer and probe design using K-mer matching instead of alignments

PriMux is a new software package for selecting multiplex compatible, degenerate primers and probes to detect diverse targets such as viruses. It requires no multiple sequence alignment, instead applying k-mer algorithms, hence it scales well for large target sets and saves user effort from curating sequences into alignable groups. PriMux has the capability to predict degenerate primers as well as probes suitable for TaqMan or other primer/probe triplet assay formats, or simply probes for microarray or other single-oligo assay formats. PriMux employs suffix array methods for efficient calculations on oligos 10-∼100 nt in length. TaqMan® primers and probes for each segment of Rift Valley fever virus were designed using PriMux, and lab testing comparing signatures designed using PriMux versus those designed using traditional methods demonstrated equivalent or better sensitivity for the PriMux-designed signatures compared to traditional signatures. In addition, we used PriMux to design TaqMan® primers and probes for unalignable or poorly alignable groups of targets: that is, all segments of Rift Valley fever virus analyzed as a single target set of 198 sequences, or all 2863 Dengue virus genomes for all four serotypes available at the time of our analysis. The PriMux software is available as open source from http://sourceforge.net/projects/PriMux.     

Short, 12 mer fluorescently labeled methylphosphonated oligonucleotides to visualize beta-actin MRNA in vivo.

A pair of fluorescently labeled antisense ( complementary to beta-actin mRNA) or control methylphosphonated DNA 12-mers were introduced into live cells. After fixation their distribution throughout the cell was compared to the localization pattern for the pair of control oligos.The distribution of the two sets of oligos differed in that there was a distinct pool of antisense probes that were detected at elevated levels in the leading edge of fibroblast and cortical underlining. The resulting fluorescence patterns of antisense probes colocalized and were analogous to labeling pattern already described and produced by in situ hybridization. The length of each of the probe destabilized binding to mismatched sequences at physiological temperature, while the overall length of the pair gave a unique, highly sequence specific recognition of a target sequence. Simultaneous, in vivo application of multiple probes let include internal controls into the experimental setup, in order to distinguish different distributions of antisense and control probes in the same specimen.     

K-tuple frequency in the human genome and polymerase chain reaction.

The frequency occurrences of K-tuple (overlapping sequences of defined length, K) were computed from the known human genome sequences. The significance of these frequencies for the whole human genome was tested by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A computer programs based on these results was written to choose primers to amplify DNA target sequences, either of human genes or of human infectious agents. The software also gave nested primer sequences which were used to synthesize non radioactive probes by PCR. We applied these two methods, primer selection and non radioactive probes, to easily and quickly set up very efficient PCR sets to work in the human genome context.     

YODA: selecting signature oligonucleotides

MOTIVATION: Selecting oligonucleotide probes for use in microarray design, and other applications requiring signature sequences, involves identifying sequences which will bind strongly to their intended target, while binding only weakly (or preferably, not at all) to non-target sequences which may be present in the hybridization reaction. While many tools to assist in selection of such sequences exist, all the ones we examined lack important oligo design and software features. RESULTS: YODA is an application for assisting biological researchers in selecting signature sequences. It incorporates a custom sequence similarity search to find potential cross-hybridizing non-target sequences. For this task, most oligo design tools rely on BLAST, which is ill suited for it due to an unacceptable risk of false negatives. YODA supports multiple probe design goals including single-genome, multiple-genome, pathogen-host and species/strain-identification. A graphical interface is provided as well as a command-line interface, both of which support many user-controlled parameters. YODA is easy to install and use and runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms. AVAILABILITY: Freely available (LGLP) along with source code and additional documentation at http://pathport.vbi.vt.edu/YODA CONTACT: enordber@vbi.vt.edu.     

Mathematical tools to optimize the design of oligonucleotide probes and primers

The identification and quantification of specific organisms in mixed microbial communities often relies on the ability to design oligonucleotide probes and primers with high specificity and sensitivity. The design of these oligonucleotides (or “oligos” for short) shares many of the same principles in spite of their widely divergent applications. Three common molecular biology technologies that require oligonucleotide design are polymerase chain reaction (PCR), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and DNA microarrays. This article reviews techniques and software available for the design and optimization of oligos with the goal of targeting a specific group of organisms within mixed microbial communities. Strategies for enhancing specificity without compromising sensitivity are described, as well as design tools well suited for this purpose.     

Nucleic acid-based,cultivation-independent detection of Listeria spp and genotypes of L monocytogenes

Based on comparative analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences, two oligonucleotide probes for in situ detection of all members of the genus Listeria were designed. These probes allowed fast and reliable in situ detection of Listeria spp. even in complex samples like raw milk. Almost full-length iap (invasion-associated protein) gene sequences were determined for 69 Listeria monocytogenes strains of all 13 known serotypes. A comparison of these sequences revealed that the L. monocytogenes strains can be grouped into three distinct genotypes. These clusters correlate well with distinct serotypes. Thus, strains of serotypes b and d belong to genotype I, a and c to genotype II, and 4a and 4c, which are rarely isolated from humans, group together within genotype III. These results could be corroborated by further comparative sequence analysis of genes encoding two phospholipases - plcA and plcB. Based on the iap gene sequences, a highly specific and reproducible competitive PCR detection method was developed. Primer pairs targeting genotype-specific regions of the iap gene were designed. The amplification of non-specific PCR products from DNA of non-target strains was prevented by adding competitive primers. By applying this method, the rapid and reliable distinction of the three L. monocytogenes genotypes was possible.     

Avoidance of nonspecific hybridization by employing oligonucleotide micro-arrays generated from hydrolysis polymerase chain reaction probe sequences

We have developed a low-density oligonucleotide-based micro-array where 5'-end-tethered capture probe sequences were derived from Primer Express software. The capture probes represent hydrolysis probe sequences devoid of any fluorochromes and were shown to retain hybridization binding specificity to their amplicons; hybridization specificity was retained independent to probe sequences. This procedure allowed the specificity of each capture probe to be verified using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the presence of nucleic acid sequences typically expected to be present within a sample and therefore has reduced possibility of nonspecific hybridization when used in a micro-array format. We propose that specificity-validated probes are applied to form a micro-array for the purpose of general target screening, with incumbent multiparallelization and cost and time savings. However, if required, the subset of probe sequences of interest can be used for quantitative assessment in conventional real-time PCR.     

Fidelity of capture-enrichment for mtDNA genome sequencing: influence of NUMTs

Enriching target sequences in sequencing libraries via capture hybridization to bait/probes is an efficient means of leveraging the capabilities of next-generation sequencing for obtaining sequence data from target regions of interest. However, homologous sequences from non-target regions may also be enriched by such methods. Here we investigate the fidelity of capture enrichment for complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome sequencing by analyzing sequence data for nuclear copies of mtDNA (NUMTs). Using capture-enriched sequencing data from a mitochondria-free cell line and the parental cell line, and from samples previously sequenced from long-range PCR products, we demonstrate that NUMT alleles are indeed present in capture-enriched sequence data, but at low enough levels to not influence calling the authentic mtDNA genome sequence. However, distinguishing NUMT alleles from true low-level mutations (e.g. heteroplasmy) is more challenging. We develop here a computational method to distinguish NUMT alleles from heteroplasmies, using sequence data from artificial mixtures to optimize the method.     

用反向斑点杂交方法检测猪常见致病菌

目的:建立检测猪常见致病菌的反向斑点杂交方法。方法:将23S rRNA基因芯片用的针对12种细菌的25～30 mer探针加长到30～38 mer,2对通用引物序列不变。用地高辛标记下游引物,以尼龙膜为载体制备膜芯片,检验探针/膜杂交的特异性和敏感性;另外设计1条大肠杆菌K88基因探针、一段带K88探针的报告基因和1对报告基因的反向PCR引物,在PCR体系中增加封口的K88报告基因和反向引物对,被检样品扩增后进行膜杂交。结果:修改的13条探针与参考目标菌株在膜上成特异性杂交,对52个参考菌株和野外分离株的检测准确率为92%;膜杂交的敏感性与玻片芯片接近,最小检出量为100 fg DNA;在尼龙膜上增加K88探针,与3重PCR产物杂交,可以检测到大肠杆菌K88毒力基因。结论:建立的反向斑点杂交方法简便快速,检测成本低,可用于仪器设备不足的实验室,同时可以加入检测如大肠杆菌K88等致病基因,提高基于保守基因的芯片的诊断能力。     

PieceMaker: selection of DNA fragments for selector-guided multiplex amplification

We describe PieceMaker, a software tool for the design of applications of selector probes–oligonucleotide probes that direct circularization of target nucleic acid molecules. Such probes can be combined in parallel to circularize a selection of fragments from restriction digested total genomic DNA. These fragments can then be amplified in a single PCR using a common primer pair, yielding substrates for subsequent analyses, such as parallel genotyping or sequencing. However, designing multiplex selector assays is a laborious task. The PieceMaker program alleviates this problem by selecting restriction enzymes to generate suitable fragments for selection, and generating the output data required to design the selector probes.     

Polymerase chain reaction for verification of fluorescent colonies of Erwinia chrysanthemi and Pseudomonas putida WCS358 in immunofluorescence colony staining

The potential of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for verifying the identity of colonies stained by the immunofluorescence colony-staining (IFC) procedure was investigated. Using primers directed against conserved sequences of the pectate lyase-genes coding for isozymes PLa, PLd and PLe of Erwinia chrysanthemi , the authors confirmed the identity of 96% of 20 fluorescent target colonies, punched from IFC-stained samples with pure cultures. In pour plates with mixtures of Erw. chrysanthemi and non-target colonies from potato peel extracts, the identity of 90% of 113 target colonies was confirmed.
Using primers directed against sequences of the ferric-pseudobactin receptor gene pupA of Pseudomonas putida WCS358, the identity of 96% of 22 target colonies was confirmed in IFC-stained samples with pure cultures. In pour plates with mixtures of Ps. putida WCS358 and non-target bacteria from compost extracts, the identity of 59% of 108 fluorescent colonies was confirmed by PCR. It was shown that components from non-target bacteria lowered the threshold level of PCR for Ps. putida WCS358