| abstract |
The present invention relates to a real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method for the detection and quantification of variants of nucleic acid sequences which differ in the probe-bindung site. The method is based on the complete or partial amplification of the same region of the variants and the addition of two or more oligonucleotide probes to the same PCR mixture, each probe being specific for the probe-binding site of at least one variant. The method can be applied e.g. to estimate the viral load in a sample, to differentiate between subgroups, subtypes isolates or clades of a viral species or to estimate the impact of the viral load on tumorigenesis. |