Q Chip, a leading developer of microencapsulation solutions, has developed a new PCR tool which speeds up bacterial identification, with greater accuracy and less variability. Identification using the ReaX™ Assay 16S beads is based on PCR amplification of the widely used 16S ribosomal RNA gene.

In a comparative study of the identification of E. coli and S. aureus, the ReaX Assay 16S PCR beads generated identical PCR bands for each triplicate and for each organism, compared with conventional liquid-based PCR methods. However, with the ReaX Assay 16S PCR beads less manual pipetting was required, with fewer opportunities for contamination, and reduced pipetting error was also observed, leading to less variability between reactions. PCR reaction set-up using the ReaX Assay 16S beads required no prior optimization and was quicker and more user-friendly to perform compared to conventional liquid-based PCR set-up.

Subsequent sequence analysis of the amplification products of both organisms revealed that the ReaX Assay 16S beads gave excellent DNA sequence detection results, demonstrating that this enhanced PCR reagent formulation is an excellent complement to post PCR applications.

In another study, PCR performed using the ReaX Assay 16S beads demonstrated successful amplification of the rRNA gene using material directly from bacterial colonies on an agar plate. No DNA isolation step was required.

ReaX Assay 16S beads contain all the reagents required to perform 16S rRNA gene amplification, including a high-performance Taq polymerase, dNTPs and the universal 16S rRNA gene-specific primers 27F and 907R. Only template DNA is required prior to running the PCR protocol. Amplification is confirmed using end point PCR.