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RT-PCR is short for reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. It is a technique in which an RNA strand is transcribed into a DNA complement to be able to subject it to amplification by polymerase chain reactions (PCR). Transcribing an RNA strand into a DNA complement is termed reverse transcription (RT) and is done by the enzyme reverse transcriptase. Afterwards, the original RNA is digested enzymatically, and a second strand of DNA is synthesized. The complementary DNA and it's antisense counterpart are then amplified by PCR.
It is an important technique in the diagnosis of genetic diseases and in the determination of the abundance of specific RNA species as a measure of gene expression. (See also Northern blot.)
RT-PCR sometimes refers to real-time PCR, a recently developed variation of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction designed for quantitative purposes. Real-time refers to the fact that some of the PCR machines can display and monitor the progress in each reaction as the reaction proceeds. To avoid confusion with the 2 "RT", the term quantitative PCR or quantitative RT-PCR is preferred.
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