b'Introduction Digital PCRDigital PCR (dPCR) is a PCR approach Cancer is a genetic disease. Whether inherited or acquired,that directly quantifies nucleic acid all of the myriad changes in protein expression, immuneamounts from isolated Applied signaling, and cell growth and death that define cancer areBiosystems Absolute Q Assays ultimately caused by genetic dysfunction. Probe any deeperon individual nucleic acid molecules. dPCR enables fast and highly precise than this into the biology of cancer, and the details becomequantitation of genetic mutations. less clear. Only a fraction of cancer-associated geneticIt can be especially valuable for variants have been identified, and with them only partialdetecting variants that occur at low frequency relative to wild type understanding of the events they provoke. New advancesbackground DNA, such as in liquid in gold-standard genetic technologies such as quantitativebiopsy or precious tumor samples. PCR (qPCR), capillary electrophoresis (CE) sequencing,dPCR has quickly become a standard and microarrays continue to drive fundamental and appliedapproach for nucleic acid quantitation in oncology, cell and gene therapy discoveries in oncology. More recent technologies such asdevelopment, and other research next-generation sequencing (NGS), microfluidic digital PCRapplications. For more information, (dPCR; see sidebar), and Applied BiosystemscastPCRclick here. (competitive allele-specific TaqManPCR) technology arecastPCR technology enabling researchers to pursue new territory with greaterApplied Biosystems castPCR sensitivity, precision, and speed. This eBook explores how(competitive allele-specific TaqMan genetic technologies have enabled some of the most recentPCR) technology is a fast, highly specific, and sensitive approach and exciting discoveries in several areas of cancer research. to detecting mutant alleles in the presence of large amounts of wild type alleles. castPCR technology uses a mutant allelespecific TaqMan Contents primer that competes with a blocker oligonucleotide on the wild type allele. The blocker prevents binding Section 1: Molecular mechanisms of cancer3 of the mutant allelespecific primer to the wild type allele to suppress wild Section 2: New approaches to cancer detection5 type allele amplification and reduce background signal. Only the mutant allele is amplified, which means higher Section 3: Cancer biomarkers, vaccines, and therapeutics8 specificity. castPCR is used in cancer research to detect and measure Section 4: Genetic analysis technologies to support cancer research 14 low-frequency somatic mutations in cancer-associated genes. For more information, click here. Contents 2'