METHOD FOR SELECTIVE AMPLIFICATION OF NUCLEIC ACIDS AND KIT FOR PERFORMING THE SAME

A method is disclosed for detecting an amplification of nucleic acids in which use is essentially made of the fact that a predefined nucleic acid chain (target sequence) can be multiplied/amplified in the presence of a target-sequence-specific activator oligonucleotide. The target-sequence-specific activator oligonucleotide brings about the separation of de-novo synthesized complementary primer elongation products by means of strand displacement, so that a new primer oligonucleotide can attach to the respective strand of the template. The complex thus formed, of a primer oligonucleotide and a template strand, can initiate a new primer elongation reaction. The primer elongation products thus formed, in turn, act again as templates, the result being an exponentially proceeding amplification reaction. In the method, a selective amplification is effected in that, for the first, second primer and activator oligonucleotide, variants are used which differ from the target sequence by at least one nucleotide.