A self-probing primer PCR method for detection of very short DNA fragments

A novel self-probing primer method that based on the fluorescence resonance energy transfer principle is designed to detect DNA fragments of approximately 40 bp. Four self-probing primer reaction systems were developed to target a maize endogenous reference gene (HMG), a soybean endogenous reference gene (Lectin), a rapeseed endogenous reference gene (CruA) and an exogenous gene 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (ctp2-cp4epsps). These four primer systems were confirmed to have a high level of inter-species specificity and good intra-species stability. The limit of detection was estimated to be 10 copies of haploid genomes for all four assays. The validation results demonstrated that the self-probing primer methods are able to quantify the DNA amount in the different samples with good sensitivity and precision. When highly processed food products were assayed, the self-probing primer method produced better results than the TaqMan probe method. Overall, the self-probing primer method is suitable for qualitative and quantitative detection of very short DNA targets in samples of different sources.