INCREASED SENSITIVITY AND REPRODUCIBILITY OF TRAP ASSAY BY AVOIDING DIRECT PRIMERS INTERACTION

Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol (TRAP) is a sensitive procedur e to measure telomerase activity in small samples of cell or tissue ex tracts. Due to the strict correlation between high levels of telomeras e activity and neoplastic transformation, TRAP assay could provide an important diagnostic marker of malignancy. Although the original TRAP assay is very Sensitive and some improvements have been described, occ asional artifacts still persist in the modified procedures. Here we de scribe how changes in the sequence of the primer used dor the amplific ation step enhance the reproducibility and sensitivity in the TRAP ass ay.