Hybridization is the base pairing of complementary strands of RNA and DNA. The complementary base pairing may be between two strands of DNA, two strands of RNA, or a strand of DNA and a strand of RNA. In most clinical molecular testing, one of the strands is synthetic, and the resulting double-stranded nucleic acid is referred to as a hybrid. The synthetic nucleic acid strand is often short and then called an oligonucleotide. A probe is another name for a synthetic strand or fragment of nucleic acid that hybridizes; probes often have attached labels to identify the complementary sequence.
