BACKGROUND Monitoring the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), or varicella-zoster virus (VZV) viral load is an important factor in the management of immunosuppressed patients, such as recipients of solid-organ or bone marrow transplants. The advent of real-time PCR technologies has prompted the widespread development of quantitative PCR assays for the detection of viral load...

Real-time PCR technology may provide an accurate and sensitive method to quantify hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA. So far, studies have been carried out using the Taqman technology with the ABI Prism 7700 sequence detector. An alternative and simple real-time PCR assay is described with no probe requirement, based on the SYBR Green I dye and LightCycler fluorimeter. Amplicon synthesis was monitored...

The number of new Immuno-PCR technologies and applications is steadily growing as a result of a general need for more sensitive immunoassays for early detection of diseases. Although Immuno-PCR has been demonstrated to be superior to its immunoassay counterpart, it is still regarded as a challenging technology due to various problems arising from its increased detection power, such as high back...

Maintaining the long-term integrity of nucleic acids in the laboratory has traditionally required the use of freezers. However, novel nucleic acid stabilization technologies may allow for the storage of DNA and RNA at room temperature in a cost-effective, environmentally friendly manner. In this study, we evaluated two novel products for room temperature DNA storage: Biomatrica's DNA SampleMatr...

Systems biology takes the integrative approach to study whole systems and systems interactions. The fields of genomics and proteomics research have revolutionized our understanding of systems biology. No single technology has made more of an impact on systems biology research than the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In the 25 years since its invention, this transforming technology has been inf...

Digital PCR is an exciting new field for molecular analysis, allowing unprecedented precision in the quantification of nucleic acids, as well as the fine discrimination of rare molecular events in complex samples. We here present a novel technology for digital PCR, Crystal Digital PCR™, which relies on the use of a single chip to partition samples into 2D droplet arrays, which are then subjecte...

Systems biology takes the integrative approach to study whole systems and systems interactions. The fields of genomics and proteomics research have revolutionized our understanding of systems biology. No single technology has made more of an impact on systems biology research than the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In the 25 years since its invention, this transforming technology has been inf...

In recent years, real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has emerged as a robust and widely used methodology for biological investigation because it can detect and quantify very small amounts of specific nucleic acid sequences. As a research tool, a major application of this technology is the rapid and accurate assessment of changes in gene expression as a result of physiology, pathophysiolog...

Real-time quantitative PCR allows the sensitive, specific and reproducible quantitation of nucleic acids. Since its introduction, real-time quantitative PCR has revolutionized the field of molecular diagnostics and the technique is being used in a rapidly expanding number of applications. This exciting technology has enabled the shift of molecular diagnostics toward a high-throughput, automated...

In the last decade, various molecular methods (e.g., fluorescent hybridization assay, sandwich hybridization assay, automatized biosensor detection, real-time PCR assay) have been developed and implemented for accurate and specific identification and estimation of marine toxic microalgal species. This review focuses on the recent quantitative real-time PCR (qrt-PCR) technology developed for the...