Abstract
The questions surrounding patenting of DNA sequences encoding specific proteins are relatively well reviewed in the available literature. However, neither applications nor molecular cytogenetic techniques, which use these sequences as a probe, have been reviewed in the light of the patenting. Furthermore, the patenting of the use of numerous probes, which are produced on different types of repetitive genome elements (i.e. satellite DNA or telomeric DNA sequences) and those generated by chromosome microdissection has not been reviewed. Molecular cytogenetic techniques are one of the most applied in current bioscience (as to June 2007, over 40,000 papers in browseable scientific databases mention one or several molecular cytogenetic techniques). Therefore, reviewing recent patents in this field is of general interest for numerous researchers in different areas of biology and medicine. Here, we address world-wide patents on DNA sequences used as molecular cytogenetic probes and molecular cytogenetic techniques to define current state and perspectives of this biomedical direction.
Keywords: Molecular cytogenetics, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), chromosome enumeration probes, site-specific DNA probes, telomeric DNA probes, peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probes, primed in situ labeling (PRINS), microdissection-derived probes
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