3.4. LASSO probes sensitivity assessment
In order to model the feasibility of a highly sensitive and selective capture of a single gene in a background of the human genome, we performed a series of capture reactions where we spiked consecutive tenfold dilutions of the 7250 bp M13mp18 viral DNA in a constant human genomic DNA background (1.6 fM, correspondent to 50 ng/µl) to a final 0.34 fM correspondent to 25*10-6 ng/µl. The captures were performed by using tenfold dilutions of the new LASSO M13 probe that was designed to capture 1kb target sequence within the M13mp18 genome. As shown in the Fig. 5 a , The expected capture band was observed even when testing the lowest 0.35 fM target molar concentration that was ~4 times lower than the Human DNA molar background (~1.6 fM) in the capture reaction.