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PCR Evolution:Blood Dirct PCR

2022-03-30
In recent years, the global outbreak of Covid-19 and the severe impact of African swine fever on the swine industry have brought molecular testing into the spotlight. On the one hand, the demand for molecular assays has increased during the epidemic, and on the other half, the rising demand has increased the operational burden of health institutions in various countries. Therefore, the development of rapid and accurate nucleic acid detection technology is the high ground that IVD companies are competing for.

Since 1983, PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) has become the most widely, frequently used, and important tool for basic nucleic acid research in the life sciences . However, the traditional PCR technique and the new techniques and applications derived from it, such as Multi PCR, Digital PCR, etc., require high purity nucleic acid templates in advance, which makes nucleic acid isolation and extraction a fundamental task that is often repeated by researchers. For those who have large number of samples to study, isolation and extraction of nucleic acids is a very labor-intensive task. Even though nucleic acid isolation and extraction reagent kits are now available in the market, they still require a lot of operating time and increase the cost of research and testing, regardless of whether the Column Purification method or the Reagent Extraction Purification method is used.

Blood is an important bioanalytical sample that contains a wealth of information about the function of all tissues and organs in the body, and the analysis of blood samples is a focus of research in the medical and scientific fields.

However, blood samples contain large number of complex substances such as immunoglobulins, hemoglobin molecules, and anticoagulants (e.g., EDTA, citrate, or Heparin) used to stabilize the samples, and these substances are often regarded as inhibitors in PCR experiments. However, the extraction process may cause loss of precious samples, experimental errors caused by human intervention, and the possibility of sample cross-contamination.
Direct PCR without nucleic acid extraction has been used in the field of microbiology since 1992 which's Colony-PCR .

However, direct PCR is a challenge for blood sample which's rich in multiple interferers. With the advancement of genetic modification technology and the epidemic disease outbreak, Whole Blood direct PCR kits, which have a variety of modified polymerases with high tolerance to blood sample inhibitors and their corresponding buffer systems combined with corresponding amplification procedures to achieve rapid detection and analysis, are not only the hottest products in the field of molecular diagnostics, but also in various manufacturers.
 

Blood direct PCR has the advantages of shortening the test time, improving sensitivity, reducing operational step, and reducing the risk of contamination. By it, which can be saved manpower, material, financial resources, and time to a greater extent. Therefore, the development of direct PCR technology has important applications for database construction, major emergency cases and large-scale catastrophic accidents.

For example, for pathogen detection: like African swine fever virus detection  and HBV virus detection ; for newborn screening by using small among of blood sample, such as dried blood stains on FTA cards ; for genotyping: PCR-RFLP based SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) genotyping . Blood direct PCR become a convenient, rapid but accurate method in clinical detection. In addition, under genotyping study of transgenic mice which’s often used in basic science research, blood direct PCR also often be used. The most of advantage are significantly reduce study time and complexity. Furthermore, the PCR products can be directly used for subsequent applications such as cloning or sequencing.

In summary, direct PCR technology is the future of molecular testing, and in particular, direct PCR on whole blood is important for clinical applications. BioTools is committed to be the best partner for scientists and has been providing the best research tools and raw materials on the road to research. Recently, we have launched a new product: TOOLS BlooDirect PCR kit (#TTG-BP01), which is a self-developed product for the most popular direct PCR on whole blood. It can be used not only for academic research, but also as a high-quality reagent for IVD Kits developers.

To see more details about TOOLS BlooDirect PCR kit

Reference
 
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