Relative Gene Expression in Normal and Tumor Tissue by Quantitative RT-PCR

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a very powerful technique for the in vitro amplification of nucleic acid sequences (1 ) PCR relies on the principle that oligonucleotide sequences hybridize to a template DNA specifically, given the appropriate conditions. Conditions such as ionic strength and temperature, when optimized, would allow two oligonucleotide primers to hybridize to a DNA template. The primers are complementary to opposite strands of DNA, which allows DNA synthesis by a thermostable DNA polymerase upon hybridization.