| abstract |
The present invention generally relates to amplfication reactions. One aspect of the invention provides amplification reaction enhancer compositions comprising trehalose, carnitine, and a non-ionic detergent, such as NP40. These enhancer compositions can improve efficiency, specificity, and sensitivity of amplification reactions in conventional and real-time PCR and RT-PCR. In addition, these compositions permit nucleic acid amplification directly in crude samples containing blood, blood components, or soil extract with little or no nucleic acid extraction prior to amplification. Another aspect of the invention provides a method of enhancing an amplification reaction containing a crude blood sample with heparin. Another improvement derived from the invention is improved detection of difficult, high GC content nucleic acid targets. |