Abstract
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a powerful tool for the retrospective analysis of fixed paraffin wax embedded material. This is the commonest source of tissue for the histopathologist. However, amplification failure is now observed in some centres using fixed tissues with PCR. Rates vary from 2% to 30% (An and Fleming 1992). Many of these failures are due to direct fixative interactions with nucleic acid templates. In this article, I will discuss the interaction of nucleic acids and fixatives and apply the findings to explain the results obtained with fixed tissues when using PCR.
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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O’Leary, J. (1994). The Polymerase Chain Reaction and Fixed Tissues. In: Rolfs, A., Weber-Rolfs, I., Finckh, U. (eds) Methods in DNA Amplification. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2530-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2530-1_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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