Strategy polynucleotide synthesis

Fig. 2. Masking strategy for the combinatorial synthesis of all possible polynucleotide tetra-mers. In round 1, a mask is used to add all four nucleotides, to four separate regions of the substrate, as the first base in the array. An orthogonal mask is used in round 2 to subdivide each mononucleotide cell into quarters for the addition of the four nucleotides as the second base. This generates a 4 x 4 array of all possible dinucleotides. The mask used in round 3 further subdivides the dinucleotide cells into quarters for the addition of the third base. After 4 rounds, an array of all 256 dinucleotides is obtained. This process can be continued, using masks which subdivide cells into increasingly smaller regions, to obtain complete arrays of longer polynucleotide sequences...

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