TriLink Biotechnologies said today that it has inked a licensing agreement with Denmark's QuantiBact to offer twisted intercalating nucleic acid, or TINA, modified oligonucleotides.
TINA molecules are intercalators placed at the 5' end of primers to stabilize duplex formation, thus improving the sensitivity and specificity of endpoint and real-time PCR, TriLink said. The molecules may be used wherever an enhanced melting temperature is required such as triplex formation, or potentially even gene silencing, the company said.
QuantiBact scientists published a paper last year in PLoS One describing how adding ortho-TINA molecules at the 5' position to standard primers in a qPCR experiment enabled 100 percent efficiency in "significantly stressed reaction conditions," including lower primer concentrations and increased annealing temperatures (PCR Insider, 6/21/2012).
TriLink said it will make the modified oligos available in June.
"At TriLink we pride ourselves on our quality and our ability to handle unique nucleic acid modifications," TriLink President and CEO Richard Hogrefe said in a statement. "This makes us an ideal manufacturer of TINA oligos."