| Summary: | Nuclear substructures known as “nuclear bodies” associate with particular gene loci, and this may determine or reflect a mechanism of genetic control. The detection of these associations currently relies on the use of loci-specific probes, or immunoprecipitation of bulk cells with a particular protein. However, there is evidence that these associations respect the nuclear body, not necessarily any one constituent protein, and are statistically and/or functionally significant even when they occur over distances resolvable by light microscopy, or within single cells. A method is proposed that will allow for the identification of loci contained within the vicinity of an arbitrary nuclear structure in a single cell. It is demonstrated that the crucial aspects of this method are feasible; that DNA sequences originating from arbitrary subnuclear regions targeted by two-photon irradiation can be determined, and identified to a particular locus.
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