Single molecule genotyping by TIRF microscopy

As part of a programme to develop a metrological framework for single molecule measurements in biology, we have investigated the applications of single molecule imaging to genomics. Specifically, we have developed a technique for measuring the frequencies of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in complex or pooled samples of DNA. We believe that this technique has applications to statistical genotyping-the identification of correlations between SNP frequencies and particular phenotypes-and other areas where it is desirable to track the frequencies of SNPs in complex DNA populations.