Transcription-mediated amplification
This article may be too technical for most readers to understand.(May 2014) |
Transcription-mediated amplification (TMA) is an isothermal (performed at constant temperature), single-tube nucleic acid amplification system utilizing two enzymes, RNA polymerase and reverse transcriptase.
"Amplification" means creating many more copies of a strand of nucleic acid than was present at first, in order to readily detect it or test it. Rapidly amplifying the target RNA/DNA allows a lab to simultaneously detect multiple pathogenic organisms in a single tube. TMA technology allows a clinical laboratory to perform nucleic acid test (NAT) assays for blood screening with fewer steps, less processing time, and faster results. It is used in
Transcription-mediated amplification has several advantages compared to other amplification methods including:
- TMA is isothermal; a water bath or heat block is used instead of a thermal cycler.
- TMA produces RNA amplicon rather than DNA amplicon. Since RNA is more labile in a laboratory environment, this reduces the possibility of carry-over contamination.
- TMA produces 100–1000 copies per cycle (PCR and LCR exponentially doubles each cycle). This results in a 10 billion fold increase of DNA (or RNA) copies within about 15–30 minutes.
References
- Daniel L. Kacian, Timothy J. Fultz: Nucleic acid sequence amplification methods. In: Biotechnology Advances 1995, 13.3, S. 569–569
From: http://www.gen-probe.com