Provided is an array including a solid support having a surface, the surface having a plurality of wells, a gel material retained in each of the plurality of wells, the wells being separated from each other by interstitial regions on the surface, the interstitial regions substantially devoid of the gel material or having substantially deactivated gel material; and primer nucleic acids attached to the gel material in the wells. Methods for making and using the array are also provided.

The invention relates to a system and methods for enhancing access to nuclear informational molecules, such as DNA, RNA, and proteins, by analytical biomolecules, such as transposome complexes, by treating nuclei with a nuclear permeability enhancer, and to methods of using nuclear membrane, cell membrane, and external compartmentalization approaches as contiguity preserving elements.

Provided in some aspects are methods for light-controlled in situ surface patterning of a substrate. Compositions such as nucleic acid arrays produced by the methods are also disclosed. In some embodiments, a method disclosed herein comprises using photoresist for photocontrollable hybridization and/or ligation of nucleic acid molecules, wherein photoresist removal allows hybridization and/or ligation of nucleic acid molecules at the exposed area. A large diversity of barcodes can be created in molecules on the substrate via sequential rounds of light exposure, hybridization, and ligation.

The invention provides methods for synthesizing a product DNA molecule of any DNA sequence from a universal library of overlapping oligonucleotides. The method involves combining a plurality of the overlapping oligonucleotides in a reaction pool, where the sequences of the plurality of oligonucleotides comprise at least a sub-sequence of the product DNA molecule. The method also involves annealing the plurality of oligonucleotides, performing a ligation step, and performing an amplification step to thereby synthesize a sub-sequence of the product DNA molecule. The invention can be used to synthesize a DNA molecule of any possible sequence from the universal library, which can be accomplished through a hierarchal assembly scheme. In one embodiment the universal library comprises fewer than 10,000 pre-manufactured oligonucleotides that can be synthesized into the any possible DNA sequence.