INTRODUCTIONPCR-based whole-genome amplification (WGA) has the goal of generating microgram quantities of genome-representative DNA from picogram or nanogram amounts of starting material. This amplification should introduce little, or ideally no, representational bias. Unlike other techniques for WGA, PCR-based methods are generally less affected by DNA quality and are more applicable to DNA ex...

In many DNA amplification reactions, extra fragments arising from nonspecific mispriming, a mixture of target templates or allelic variation may be generated in addition to the desired product. Some nonspecific bands can be reduced by more stringent annealing conditions, but in cases of allelic variation or other mixed targets, the amplification products may be of the same length but differ by ...

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an indispensable DNA amplification technique that has been exploited in numerous areas, including molecular diagnostics. One major drawback of PCR is the competing amplification of undesired off-target products, which primarily occurs at ambient temperatures prior to PCR cycling (1). Hot Start PCR techniques aim to block the extension of primers in nonspec...

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is recognized as a rapid, sensitive, and specific molecular diagnostic tool for the analysis of nucleic acids. However, the sensitivity and kinetics of diagnostic PCR may be dramatically reduced when applied directly to biological samples, such as blood and feces, owing to PCR-inhibitory components. As a result, pre-PCR processing procedures have been developed t...

A sensitive and convenient method for the detection of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with acquired resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) would be desirable guide treatment strategy. Consequently, studies have focused on characterization EGFR mutation. Herein, two methods co-amplification at lower denaturation temp...

A principal consumer demand is a guarantee of the safety and quality of food. The presence of foodborne pathogens and their potential hazard, the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food production, and the correct labelling in foods suitable for vegetarians are among the subjects where society demands total transparency. The application of controls within the quality assessment pro...

One approach to quantitate RNA is the use of a known number of competitive internal standard molecules that are reverse-transcribed and subsequently co-amplified under the same reaction conditions as the target sequence (3). This technique, called competitive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (cRT-PCR) has been applied to monitor the level of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in patient...

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) revolutionized molecular genetics and has become one of the most popular techniques in modern biological and medical sciences. Owing to the exponential amplification ability of PCR, one could start from even a single copy of target DNA to produce large amounts of DNA copies for sequencing, molecular diagnosis, or genetic analysis. This remarkable amplificatio...

Many protocols in methylation studies utilize one primer set to generate a PCR product from bisulfite modified template regardless of its methylation status (methylation independent amplification MIP). However, proportional amplification of methylated and unmethylated alleles is hard to achieve due to PCR bias favoring amplification of unmethylated relatively GC poor sequence. Two primer design...