Firebird Diagnostics LLC

AEGIS^TM

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AEGIS^TM

Artificially Expanded Genetic Information Systems: AEGIS^TM

Noise free, efficient, and sensitive PCR with uniform amplification

Problem

Clinical PCR looks at complex patient samples (e.g. saliva, blood, feces). The DNA you seek hides within an ocean of uninteresting DNA. PCR is confused by this “background”, wasting PCR resources, giving false positives, lowering sensitivity and, if the task calls for amplification of many targets, dis-uniform amplification.

Solution

Build a new kind of DNA, with bases that do not bind to background DNA. Put these bases into primers that carry the PCR (but not the primers that bind to target DNA). AEGIS primers do only what they are supposed to do. Amplify!

Impact

Dramatically expanded possibilities in assay design:

Dozens of targets uniformly amplified in one tube
Absent target, 60+ PCR cycles with no background
Orthogonal detection of scarce DNA in oceans of background

Chemistry behind AEGIS^TM

Pairing in DNA and RNA (xNA) strands is governed by two rules of complementarity:
(a) Size complementarity: Large purines pair with small pyrimidines.
(b) Hydrogen bonding complementarity: Hydrogen bond donors (blue in the picture) pair with hydrogen bond acceptors (red).

Natural DNA does not use all combinations of donor and acceptor groups. Firebird expanded the genetic alphabet to include 8 additional nucleotides that form 4 additional pairs.

Publications

AEGIS Base Pairs

AEGIS S:B molecule pairing

AEGIS Base Pairs

AEGIS V:J molecule pairing

AEGIS Base Pairs

AEGIS K:X molecule pairing

AEGIS Base Pairs

AEGIS Z:P molecule pairing