Gene synthesis machines: DNA chemistry and its uses.

Deoxyoligonucleotides can now be synthesized rapidly and in high yield because of recent advances in nucleic acid chemistry. Key innovations include solid-phase synthesis on silica-based supports and the development of stable deoxynucleoside phosphoramidites as synthons. When incorporated into manual, semiautomatic, or automatic instruments, these new procedures can be used to prepare probes, mixed probes, deoxyoligonucleotides for priming DNA synthesis, analogues of deoxyoligonucleotides, and DNA segments containing more than 100 deoxynucleotides.