Improved sensitivity of whole-cell hybridization by the combination of horseradish peroxidase-labeled oligonucleotides and tyramide signal amplification

In-situ hybridization has found increasing use in nucleic acid probes in studying the specific sequences of whole-fixed bacterial cells. The use of fluorescein-tyramide as a substrate for oligonucleotides labeled with horseradish peroxidase can improve the in situ hybridization of bacterial cells. Flow cytometry measurements show that the hybridized cells have a 10- to 20-fold signal amplifications.