US Patent 9404150 Methods and compositions for universal size-specific PCR

Provided herein are products and processes for the amplification, detection and sequencing of short-stranded nucleic acid in the presence of a high background of long-stranded genomic material (e.g., host or maternal nucleic acids). The methods rely on the use of inside and outside primers introduced at varying concentrations, as well as universal amplification reactions that preferentially amplify short, low copy number nucleic acid.