METHOD FOR THE PREPARATION OF REAGENTS FOR AMPLIFICATION AND/OR DETECTION OF NUCLEIC ACIDS THAT EXHIBIT NO SIGNIFICANT CONTAMINATION BY NUCLEIC ACIDS

摘要

The present invention decribes reagents free of detectable contaminating nucleic acids for performing highly sensitive and specific nucleic acids amplification and/or detection. It relates to an improvement in the technolo gy of nucleic acid inactivation prior to nucleic acid testing (NAT) in order to prevent false-positive results. Specifically, this invention describes optimized and standardized reagents and ultra-violet treatment to achieve an effective and highly reproducible nucleic acid inactivation prior to NAT without substantially affecting the performance of the assay. More specifically, this nucleic acid inactivation process resulted in a reduction of up to four logs of the background signal associated with the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) amplification of DNA contaminating PCR reagents. This optimized and standardized method is also adaptable for use with NAT technologies other than PCR.