NEW YORK – Danish life sciences technology firm PentaBase said Friday that it has struck a nonexclusive license agreement with Asuragen, a Bio-Techne brand, for its proprietary oligonucleotide technology.
Asuragen plans to incorporate PentaBase's technology into its medical diagnostics and scientific research product portfolio, "enhancing both analytical precision and sensitivity," according to PentaBase.
Developed by PentaBase's founder and CEO Ulf Bech Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark, the Intercalating Nucleic Acid (INA) technology produces oligonucleotides that incorporate at least one hydrophobic base analog, called intercalating pseudo-nucleotide (IPN), without replacing any existing nucleotides.
The IPN enhances the base stacking effect in a DNA double helix, which increases its thermal stability. In addition, since INAs stack differently with 5'-methylated cytosine (5mC) than with unmethylated cytosine, the thermal stability of methylated DNA is greater than that of unmethylated DNA.
Levering INA, PentaBase developed EpiDirect, a qPCR-based method for the direct analysis of DNA methylation without the need for pretreatment of the DNA.