Quantification of nucleic acids, especially of mRNA, is increasingly important in biomedical research. The recently developed quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) - a highly sensitive technology for the rapid, accurate and reproducible quantification of gene expression - offers major advantages over conventional quantitative PCR. Transcript quantification is performed in the e...

BACKGROUND Maternal plasma mRNA encoded by the PLAC4 gene (placenta-specific 4), which is transcribed from chromosome 21 in placental cells, is a potential marker for the noninvasive assessment of chromosome 21 dosage in the fetus. We evaluated the diagnostic sensitivities and specificities of 2 trisomy 21-screening approaches that use maternal plasma PLAC4 mRNA. METHODS We studied maternal p...

BACKGROUND The ABCA1 gene encodes for a member of subfamily A of the ATP-binding cassette transporters that plays an important role in cellular export of cholesterol and phospholipids; therefore, quantification of the ABCA1 mRNA is critical in many studies related to its expression and regulation by metabolic factors, nutritional status, and new antiatherogenic drug candidates. We developed a r...

p53 is expressed as multiple smaller isoforms whose functions in cancer are not well understood. The p53 isoforms demonstrate abnormal expression in different cancers, suggesting they are important in modulating the function of full-length p53 (FLp53). The quantification of relative mRNA expression has routinely been performed using real-time PCR (qPCR). However, there are serious limitations w...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are a member of nuclear receptors superfamily, which mainly regulate the expression of target genes involved in lipid and energy metabolism. These receptors are divided to three isotypes: PPARα, PPARγ and PPARβ/δ. Each isotype has a distinct tissue distribution relating to the distinct functions. In this study, the mRNA abundance for PPARα, PP...

Splicing reactions generally combine high speed with accuracy. However, some of the pre-mRNAs escape the nucleus with a retained intron. Intron retention can control gene expression and increase proteome diversity. We calculated the escape rate for the yeast PTC7 intron and pre-mRNA. This prediction was facilitated by the observation that splicing is a linear process and by deriving simple alge...

introduction: the limited resolution of the imaging system causes partial volume effects (pves). these results in spreading of image counts to the neighboring pixels. this phenomenon is called spill-out effect. this study aimed at quantifying pves using imagej. methods:technetium-99m solution of concentration of 74 kbq/ml was filled into spheres a, b and c of diameters: 26 mm, 20 mm and 16 mm r...

Background One of the common gonadotropin hormones used for infertility treatment is recombinant Follicle stimulating hormone (rFSH). pH is an environmental factor that can affect production of recombinant proteins with no imposing cost. Culture pH is known as a parameter that significantly affects cell growth and protein production. In this study, tried to investigate the effect of different p...

Literature indicates that in 95 % of all subjects with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and in 25-30 % of subjects with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) a reciprocal translocation between the long arms of chromosome 9 and chromosome 22 [t(9;22)] can be found. This translocation or the resulting fusion product can be detected by a number of techniques, including fluorescent in situ hybridization...