Roche Real Time PCR Makes PCR Runs Shorter

2007-03-08 10:33:40

( Education )



Organisms in nature have a way of copying their DNA, in a series of enzyme reactions called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Laboratories mimic this process using a conventional PCR machine or real time pcr machine, like the Roche real time PCR.

Increasingly, you will see the results of assays from conventional PCR being transformed into real time PCR assays, to make analysis easier. Conventional PCR is not quantitative; quantification involves establishing a complicated competitive PCR and comparing the readings.

By comparison, quantitative rt pcr capability is an inherent feature of real time pcr machines. Roche real time PCR is fitted with instruments to measure the amount of product (DNA copies) at the end of every real time polymerase chain reaction cycle.

Roche real time PCR excites your PCR product with a laser system, unlike other real time pcr units which are lamp-based. Your advantage in a laser source is that it gives brighter illumination to the fluorescent matter but less background noise.

The Roche real time PCR, which it calls LightCycler, makes use of hybridization probes in addition the PCR primers (which are enzymes consisting of short DNA sequences that are necessary for the DNA polymerase to get started in copying the DNA strands). You have one probe being activated by external light and the other by fluorescence coming from the DNA molecules generated by the PCR amplification process.

The major advantage of the Roche real time PCR is shorter PCR-run times. Despite shorter running times, a number of samples can be analyzed simultaneously. The quantitative rt pcr capability gives you the analysis immediately after the pcr run, and not much later.

One important use of PCR is in the detection and quantification of pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria and fungi, whether for environment detection or in treating infected patients.


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