NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The human genome has an estimated 300,000 known SNPs that lie in regions of high GC content, according to researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto. Probe-based PCR assays often fail in these regions, but new research from the SickKids-Toronto team has now shown that adding a pre-amplification step to TaqMan SNP genotyping protocols allows better discrimination.