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Paul Diehl
650-968-2200 x112
pdiehl@systembio.com

 FAST, COST-EFFECTIVE, UNBIASED ANALYSIS OF GENE LEVELS IN SMALL SAMPLES

System Biosciences’ New Product to Amplify Small Quantities of RNA for Expression Analysis

Mountain View, CA – August 23, 2004:  System Biosciences (SBI) announced the launch of its Full Spectrum ™ RNA Amplification Kit which enables researchers to use real-time PCR to quantify expression levels of more than 125 different genes from small samples with limited numbers of cells. 

Analysis of gene expression levels from pure but limited samples such as biopsies, cytology specimens, and microdissected tissues is essential to understand complex biological processes controlling processes such as the progression of disease, mechanisms of organism development, and responses to potential drugs or toxins.  Current approaches to uniformly amplify the limited amount of RNA from these critical samples for this type of analysis are time-consuming and costly.  The Full Spectrum RNA Amplification method is unique in that it provides an economical single-tube procedure that can be completed in just three hours.

Unlike other RNA amplification technology, the Full Spectrum method provides unbiased amplification of all regions of the expressed RNA.  This feature enables researchers to detect any portion of the expressed sequence, which is an essential requirement to obtain expression data for the significant portion of genes that are expressed as more than one splice variant.  Often different splice variants have different biological functions and are involved in separate responses.

The Full Spectrum procedure makes use of a specially developed universal primer that preferentially binds to messenger RNA transcripts and uniformly amplifies these gene transcripts using low-cycle PCR. This approach maintains the relative levels of each transcript species present in the starting samples, even when using starting amounts of RNA as low as 5 nanograms. As a result, an amplified pool of cDNA is produced that can be used as a template to quantify the levels of expressed genes in the original sample.  This approach is more robust, faster, and requires fewer steps than other RNA amplification approaches. The Full Spectrum RNA Amplification product is the first of a series of products based on this novel universal primer approach.

SBI is based in Mountain View, California and focuses on developing tools and services to facilitate genome-wide functional screening, discovery, and analysis of genes that regulate biological responses.

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To learn more about System Biosciences, please visit www.systembio.com