Construction of Full-Length-Enriched cDNA Libraries: The Oligo-Capping Method

The full-length cDNA, which contains the entire sequence of the mRNA, is the ultimate goal for cDNA cloning. Unfortunately, cDNA libraries constructed by many types of conventional methods have a high content of nonfull-length cDNA clones. One of the reasons for this is that reverse transcriptase (RT) tends to stop during the first strand synthesis and falls off, leaving nonfull-length cDNA. Thus, nonfull-length cDNA is an inevitable result of the use of RT for the synthesis of cDNA.