Exiqon and Asuragen said this week that they have signed a service center agreement that allows Asuragen to provide real-time PCR services based on Exiqon's MiRcury LNA Universal RT microRNA PCR products.
Asuragen's genomic services division provides a comprehensive range of nucleic acid-based services from biomarker discovery to development of companion diagnostics, including isolation and preparation from multiple sample types, genomic profiling, miRNA/mRNA expression profiling, assay development and validation, CLIA-based clinical trial testing, bioinformatics, and regulatory services.
Exiqon's LNA-based microRNA real-time PCR profiling combines a Universal RT reaction with locked nucleic acid-enhanced PCR primers, which results in a high degree of sensitivity and specificity for all sample types, the company said. The assay system "holds great promise as a non-invasive way to discover important new biomarkers for a wide range of diseases and biological processes," Exiqon said.