NEB Releases a Thermostable Reverse Transcriptase

New England Biolabs has released the WarmStart® RTx, an in silico-engineered thermostable reverse transcriptase optimized for speed, sensitivity and inhibitor resistance. The new reverse transcriptase has been designed for detection of very small RNA quantities in complex samples.

The WarmStart® RTx is reversibly inhibited at room temperature due to coupling with a reversibly-bound aptamer. Room temperature inhibition allows setting up high throughput reactions without background activity. WarmStart® RTx is active from 40 degrees C and has maximum activity at 55 degrees C. It is specially indicated for LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification). LAMP detects a target nucleic acid with high specificity (less that 10 copies of the target) without need for sophisticated equipment. Despite performing better in reactions with short amplicons (RT-LAMP and RT-PCR), it performs also well in cDNA synthesis up to 5 kb.

Source: TheScientist