FIG. 1.

Schematic representation of the four sloppy molecular beacon probes. Each probe possessed a different sequence and a differently colored fluorophore, enabling the four probes to be used simultaneously in the same reaction mixture and to be distinguished from each other by the spectrofluorometric thermal cycler used to perform the assays. Probe A was labeled with fluorescein (red) and dabcyl (gray), probe B was labeled with Alexa Fluor 546 (blue) and dabcyl, probe C was labeled with Alexa Fluor 594 (orange) and BHQ2 (black), and probe D was labeled with Cy5 (green) and BHQ2.