Recent developments in nucleic acid identification using solid-phase enzymatic assays

This review (containing 101 refs.) covers recent achievements in the development of new approaches for enzymatically assisted detection of nucleic acids on microarrays. We discuss molecular techniques including the polymerase chain reaction, reverse transcription, allele specific primer extension and a range of isothermal techniques for the amplification and discrimination of nucleic acids. This also includes their implementation into microfluidic systems. These techniques all show great promise for use in the life sciences by allowing for high throughput, cost effective and highly sensitive and specific analysis of nucleic acids. Importantly, they can be potentially integrated into personalized and point-of-care medicine.