From owner-diagnostics@net.bio.net Wed Feb 05 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!biosci!not-for-mail From: Bob van Gemen Newsgroups: bionet.diagnostics Subject: Re: AMPLIFICATION Date: 6 Feb 1997 03:56:55 -0800 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 25 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Approved: odonnell@sasa.gov.uk Distribution: world Message-ID: <5dcgu7$p78@net.bio.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net >Has anybody heard of TMA? How does it rate as an amplified diagnostic tool? > TMA (transcription mediated amplification) is identical to NASBA and both are isothermal amplification methods based on transcription. The transcription based amplification methods are extremely suited to amplify RNA sequences and result in huge amounts of single strand RNA amplification product. Both on TMA and NASBA there are many publications describing the use for research and clinical diagnostic purposes. In our hands the performance of NASBA is always as good as the performance of PCR. In many cases were the target molecule is an RNA or in cases were quantification played an important role the NASBA was often better than the RT-PCR. Bob van Gemen Groupleader Molecular Biology Organon Teknika Boseind 15 5281 RM Boxtel The Netherlands E-mail: bvgemen@am.otbc01.umc.akzonobel.nl .