Parallel SELEX.TM.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The Parallel SELEX.
TM.
process provides product libraries which are formed by combining a pool of first chemical reactants coupled to a nucleic acid with a pool of free chemical reactants.
The coupled nucleic acid is capable of mediating the chemical reaction which leads to the product library and further the nucleic acid is amplifiable so a product which has a predetermined desirable characteristic can be enriched for and identified from the product library.
In its most general form, the Parallel SELEX.
TM.
process may be described as in FIG.
1.
A nucleic acid-reactant test mixture is formed by attaching a first reactant (R) to each of the nucleic acids in a test mixture (containing 10.
sup.
2 to 10.
sup.
18 nucleic acids with randomized sequences).
The nucleic acid-reactant test mixture is treated with other free reactants (denoted as triangle, pentagon and hexagon) that will combine with the first reactant (R) to form different products.
It is important to note that from the nucleic acid test mixture (NA), discrete nucleic acid sequences will be associated with facilitating the formation of the different shaped products as denoted by sequence-A, sequence-B and sequence-C in FIG.
1.
The products may differ in shape, reactivity or both shape and reactivity.
Partitioning of the desirable product shape or reactivity is accomplished by binding to or reaction with a target.
Proteins, small molecules, lipids, saccharides, etc.
, are all examples of targets (T).
After binding to or reacting with the target the non-interacting products, which are attached to sequence-B and sequence-C as depicted in FIG.
1 are separated from sequence-A and discarded.
The nucleic acid sequence-A is then amplified by a variety of methods known to those experienced in the art.
Sequence-A is then used to facilitate the assembly of the desirable product by facilitating the specific reaction to form the selected product on treatment with the mixture of starting reactants.
In a typical reaction, Sequence-A can be reattached to the first reactant, however, said reattachment is not always required