Figure 4.

Mechanism of elution for beacon 14a. (a) Proposed mechanism of elution. Representations are as in Figure 3c. Hybridization of the oligonucleotide target OT2 stabilizes the formation of a hairpin stem and disrupts interactions with the capture oligonucleotide. (b) Assaying the mechanism of elution with beacon variants. Beacons designed to assess interactions with OT2 or the formation of the intramolecular hairpin (underlined) are shown. The elution characteristics of these constructs with target OT2 were assessed as in Figure 3a. (c) Assaying the mechanism of elution with target oligonucleotide variants. Targets designed to assess interactions between OT2 and beacon 14a are shown. The elution characteristics of beacon 14a with the target variants were assessed as in Figure 3a.