The convenient one-step reaction setup involves incubating bisulfite converted template DNA with a mixture of reaction buffer and REPLI-g DNA polymerase. After heat inactivation of the polymerase, the amplified DNA is ready for analysis or storage (see figure " WBA procedure").
Accessing epigenetic information is of prime importance for many areas of biological and medical research — particularly oncology, but also stem cell research and developmental biology. However, the analysis of changes in DNA methylation is challenging due to the lack of standardized methods for providing reproducible data particularly from limited sample material. With its newly introduced EpiTect products, QIAGEN makes available standardized, pre-analytical and analytical solutions, from DNA sample collection, stabilization and purification, to bisulfite conversion and real-time or end-point PCR methylation analysis or sequencing (see figure " Standardized workflows in epigenetics").