The free software tool is specifically designed to automate the steps involved in under five minutes to generate sequencing and PCR designs that can be integrated into DNA sequencing and fragment analysis follow-on experiments.
Designing sequence-specific DNA methylation experiments can be laborious and time-consuming, with issues such as non-specific primer amplification and mis-priming crucial in maintaining experimental protocols.
The software, known as Methyl Primer Express, specifically automates the design of methylation-specific PCR or bisulphite sequencing primers as well as the methylSEQr Bisulphite Conversion Kit, a set of prepackaged reagents for rapid bisulphite conversion.
Together these products simplify applications such as bisulphite sequencing and fragment analysis in DNA methylation experiments.
The Applied Biosystems methylSEQr Bisulphite Conversion Kit allows the comparison of sodium bisulphite-treated DNA sequences with sequences from untreated genomic DNA, using a straightforward procedure for the precise identification of methylation patterns.
PCR amplicons generated after bisulphite conversion can be sequenced directly, or cloned and then sequenced.
Many laboratory techniques of molecular biology that involve DNA polymerases, such as DNA sequencing and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), require primers. The primers used for these techniques are usually short artificially synthesised DNA molecules, with a length about twenty bases.
The actual construction of such primers is quite complicated. For that reason, most laboratories do not make primers themselves, but order them by specialised companies.