TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INSTRUMENTATION AND TESTING - Preferred Container: This is a glass or plastic vessel, or glass capillaries, coated with DNA, RNA (or their synthetic analogs) and/or deoxyuracil-containing DNA.Preparation: A known amount of dissolved (I) is added to containers suitable for performing enzymatic amplification assays, then attached by gentle lyophilization (particularly in a vacuum centrifuge) of the adsorbed sample. A concentrated starting solution of (I) is exactly calibrated by high performance liquid chromatography before being diluted to produce the coating solution. During lyophilization, a known amount of a specific carrier nucleic acid (Ia) is added. This has been pretreated, preferably ultrasonically, to generate fragments of mean length of 1 - 2 kb and has the smallest possible degree of homology with (I). (Ia) are particularly derived from lambda phage DNA. Reaction vessels are simultaneously coated with several different, analyte sequence specific and calibrated (I), optionally of different cellular or organ origins, or from different species. Preferably, a standard 8 by 12 microtiter plate is coated, using concentrations of (I) that cover the whole physiological (or technical) concentration range of the analyte (wells A1 - 12 have the highest concentrations and H1 - 12 the lowest). Optionally the containers also include (i) two oligonucleotides that function as specific primers or probes; (ii) the carrier nucleic acid and (iii) other reagents required for performing an enzymatic amplification, all in lyophilized form. Alternatively, these other materials are present, in lyophilized form, in separate containers.Preferred kit: This comprises at least one 'Zepto Strip', comprising 8 containers coated with different concentrations of (I), labeled oligonucleotides and carrier nucleic acid, covered with a foil. EXAMPLE - A cDNA fragment was reverse transcribed from total RNA of ADR500 T-lymphoma cells, then 2 mul aliquots of it amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the following primers:    5'-GCCAAGAAGATGTGAAAGAG-3'    5'-ACTGGGCAGGGCTTATT-3'    to produce a 211 bp amplicon. This was purified by electrophoresis and its concentration determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Separately DNA fragments of 1 - 2 kb were prepared from lambda phage by ultrasonic treatment. A standard set of eight dilutions was prepared. One was a 1:104 dilution (1) of the purified amplicon; three were 1:5, 1:10 and 1:25 dilutions of (1); one was a 1:105 dilution (5) and the others were 1:4, 1:10 and 1:50 dilutions of (5). All samples except (1) contained lambda phage DNA. Each standard dilution (5 mul) were placed in a closed 'optical tube' and lyophilized for 30 minutes in a vacuum centrifuge. When the tubes were used in PCR, a plot of threshold cycle against log concentration (10-21 molar) was practically linear (r = 0.996) over the log concentration range -0.5 to +2.5.