Specific liquid DNA hybridization kinetics measured by fluorescence polarization

The kinetics of specific DNA hybrid formation were monitored directly in solution. Detection was based on fluorescence polarization measurements of labelled oligonucleotides at different stages during the hybridization. The effect of mismatched base pairs on the kinetics was measured. Significant differences could be observed in the kinetics when as few as three mismatches were introduced by the polymerase chain reaction technique in the target DNA sequences.