Real-time monitoring of nucleic acid target-identifying signals

1. A method of sequence-specific amplification of assay signals produced in the analysis of a target nucleic acid sequence, the method permitting real-time monitoring of amplified signal and comprising the following steps:

(a) providing a temperature-controlled sample containment device that permits real-time recording of optical assay signals produced within said device, and a temperature control means for controlling the temperature of said device;

(b) providing within said sample containment device a set of interrogation probes, said interrogation probes being capable of forming a hybridization complex with a target nucleic acid and being attached to beads, wherein said beads are associated with a chemically or physically distinguishable characteristic that identifies the interrogation probes attached thereto;

(c) contacting said interrogation probes with the target sequence to form a hybridization complex between the interrogation probes and the target sequence;

(d) contacting said hybridization complex with a second oligonucleotide probe, said second probe comprising a label and capable of being ligated to the interrogation probes contained within the hybridization complex;

(e) providing conditions suitable for ligating said second labeled oligonucleotide probe to the interrogation probe;

(f) detecting the optical signals from the second labeled probes; and

(g) performing one or more annealing-ligating-detecting-denaturing cycles, each cycle increasing the number of ligated probes in arithmetic progression and involving the following steps:

(i) providing a first temperature for the formation of the hybridization complex;

(ii) providing a second temperature for ligase-catalyzed ligation of the interrogation probe and the second labeled probe to occur to thereby generate a ligation product, wherein ligation is associated with a change in optical signature of beads associated with the ligation product;

(iii) imaging and/or recording optical signals from the ligation product thereby permitting real-time monitoring of amplified signal emanating from the ligation product; and

(iv) providing a third temperature for denaturing all hybridization complexes.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein steps (c) to (g) are repeated one or more times.

3. The composition of claim 1 wherein the target nucleic acid sequences are derived from the patient genomic sample by amplification of one or more nucleic acid subsequences within the patient genomic sample.

4. The composition of claim 3 wherein the amplification is performed using the polymerase chain reaction.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target nucleic acid sequence includes a mutation site or a polymorphic site and said set interrogation probes includes members designed to detect the different nucleotides at the mutation or polymorphic site.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target sequence includes a mutation site or a polymorphic site and the set of interrogation probes includes members capable of annealing to subsequences in the target sequence including the mutation site or the polymorphic site, within a range of proximity to the mutation site or the polymorphic site.

7. The method of claims 5 or 6 , wherein the polymorphic site is a single nucleotide polymorphism.

8. The method of claims 5 or 6 , wherein the polymorphic site is a short term tandem repeat site.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the label is an inorganic nanoparticle label, including semiconductor Quantum Dot particles and Resonant Light Scattering metal nanoparticles.