Invitrogen and Greiner Bio-One Team to Increase HPV Test Reliability

Invitrogen Corporation and Greiner Bio-One have finalized a licensing agreement to help improve the reliability of Greiner Bio-One’s HPV-DNA-test PapilloCheck® and DNA-array CytoCheck® products.

The agreement covers the rights for the use of dUTP (deoxyuridine triphosphate) in PCR-based methods to prevent sample contamination by amplification products in aerosols.

“The overall benefit of using the Invitrogen dUTP during the PCR is that false-positive results are reliably prevented at the beginning of the procedure, while the genuine sample DNA remains intact,” said Heinz Schmid, Greiner Bio-One managing director.

In order to avoid false-positives for PCR-based methods, Greiner Bio-One is incorporating into two of its DNA-arrays a procedure patented by Invitrogen for preventing PCR carryover contamination.

During the PCR, dUTP is used instead of dTTP (deoxythymidine triphosphate). Any potential carried-over contaminating PCR-products can then be selectively degraded before starting a new reaction by the addition of the enzyme Uracil-DNA-glycosylase.

“Greiner Bio-One’s HPV test will now deliver more reliable results for women who may need to be treated for HPV, which is the leading cause of cervical cancer,” said Amy Butler, Invitrogen vice president of gene expression profiling. "Licensing patented technologies like dUTP is allowing Invitrogen to assist diagnostic companies around the world to improve the sensitivity and specificity of their offerings."

Beginning in June, Greiner Bio-One will deliver the product kits for PapilloCheck® with dUTP in the MasterMix, and it will be included in the product kits for CytoCheck® this fall.