Contamination control
in RT-PCR

When RNA is used as template for amplification (RT-PCR), effective contamination control may be difficult to achieve. This is because the cDNA generated by reverse transcriptase may get degraded by the presence of UNG.

At 50°C, a temperature commonly used for MMLV or AMV reverse transcriptases, Cod UNG is rapidly inactivated, giving minimal degradation of the generated cDNA.

Since Cod UNG is very efficient at low temperature, UNG preincubation can be done at a temperature low enough to minimize cDNA generation during this step.

These two properties combined makes contamination control feasible in RT-PCR with no loss of sensitivity.