Document 0730
 DOCN  M9490730
 TI    Competitive polymerase chain reaction and analysis of viral activity at
       the molecular level.
 DT    9411
 AU    Clementi M; Bagnarelli P; Manzin A; Menzo S; Institute of Microbiology,
       University of Ancona, Italy.
 SO    Genet Anal Tech Appl. 1994;11(1):1-6. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE
       MED/94338760
 AB    Due to the high sensitivity level (which can be pushed to the limit of
       one molecule) and its extraordinary flexibility, the polymerase chain
       reaction (PCR) is the method of choice for the detection of nucleic
       acids present in very low concentration in biological samples. Since the
       qualitative features of PCR amplification have limited its use, several
       PCR-based approaches for the quantitation of low-abundance nucleic acid
       species have been planned and proposed in the last few years. Recently,
       different lines of evidence have indicated that competitive PCR and
       competitive reverse-transcription-PCR share several advantages over
       other quantitative approaches. This evidence opens up unexpected
       possibilities in many biological fields, including virology; in fact,
       availability of reliable techniques for the absolute quantitation of DNA
       and RNA species may be the key to a better understanding of the
       pathogenic steps of most viral diseases and for a more precise
       monitoring of patients treated with specific antiviral compounds. In
       this review article, we summarize the procedures adopted for this
       quantitative molecular approach; additionally, several important
       technical aspects to plan novel competitive PCR-based applications are
       analyzed, and early results obtained using cPCR for the direct
       evaluation of viral activity in vivo are discussed.
 DE    DNA, Viral/*ANALYSIS  Human  HIV Infections/DIAGNOSIS/MICROBIOLOGY
       HIV-1/ISOLATION & PURIF  Polymerase Chain Reaction/*METHODS  RNA,
       Viral/*ANALYSIS  Support, Non-U.S. Gov't  Virus
       Diseases/DIAGNOSIS/*MICROBIOLOGY  Viruses/GENETICS/*ISOLATION &
       PURIF/PATHOGENICITY  JOURNAL ARTICLE  REVIEW  REVIEW, TUTORIAL

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