Ultrasensitive quantification of mature microRNAs by real-time PCR based on ligation of a ribonucleotide-modified DNA probe

It was first demonstrated that the DNA probe modified with ribonucleotides can be efficiently ligated by using miRNA as the template. With PCR amplification of the ligated DNA probe, as low as 0.2 fM target miRNAs can be detected with high specificity.