Clontech Laboratories, Inc. to Release a Highly Sensitive Kit for Human T-Cell Receptor Repertoire Analysis

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Clontech Laboratories, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Takara Bio Inc., today announced the upcoming launch of the SMARTer® Human TCR a/b Profiling Kit. This system leverages SMART® technology and employs a 5' RACE-like approach to capture complete V(D)J variable regions of TCR transcripts, enabling users to analyze T-cell receptor (TCR) diversity from human RNA samples or directly from cells.

In humans and closely related species, cellular immunity is mediated by T cells, which participate directly in the detection and neutralization of pathogenic threats. Highly specialized extracellular TCRs selectively bind specific antigens in order to activate T cells, causing them to proliferate rapidly and mount immune responses through the release of cytokines. Given the specificity of TCR-antigen interactions, a tremendous range of TCRs are required to recognize the wide assortment of pathogenic agents one might encounter.

"We recognize that TCR repertoire analysis is an area of major interest with significant clinical applications," commented Carol Lou, President of Clontech Laboratories, Inc. "Unlike other kits for TCR profiling which work with genomic DNA, our SMARTer Human TCR a/b Profiling Kit works with mRNA and will allow researchers to capture and amplify variable regions of TCR-α  and TCR-β  subunits, providing faithful representation of TCR diversity with unparalleled sensitivity. Because mRNA templates are more highly represented than DNA templates in each T cell, they provide an opportunity to sequence with greater sensitivity and to identify more unique TCR variants, including those that are present in a very small proportion of T cells."

"This RACE-based method of TCR profiling circumvents the technical limitations of traditional multiplex PCR analysis, which is susceptible to biases imposed by the various primer pairs. The SMARTer Human TCR a/b Profiling Kit allows for simpler amplification of TCR variable regions with single primer pairs, minimizing the potential for amplification bias," noted Andrew Farmer, Vice President of Research and Development at Clontech Laboratories, Inc.

The SMARTer Human TCR a/b Profiling Kit has been shown to yield high-quality sequencing libraries from as little as 10 ng to 3 μg of total RNA obtained from peripheral blood leukocytes, or from 50 to 10,000 purified T cells. As the name suggests, the kit can be used to generate data for both alpha- and beta-chain diversity, either in the same experiment or separately. Libraries produced with the kit are indexed and ready for sequencing on Illumina® platforms. To learn more about the SMARTer Human TCR a/b Profiling Kit please visit www.clontech.com/SMARTer-TCR-Profiling.

About Clontech Laboratories, Inc.

Clontech Laboratories, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Takara Bio Inc., develops, manufactures, and distributes a wide range of life science kits and reagents under the Takara®, Clontech®, and Cellartis® brands. Key products include SMARTer® cDNA synthesis kits for a variety of samples and applications, including NGS; high-performance qPCR and PCR reagents (including the TaKaRa Ex Taq®, TaKaRa LA Taq®, Titanium®, and Advantage® enzymes); Cellartis stem cells and stem cell reagents; RT enzymes and SMART® library construction kits; the innovative In-Fusion® cloning system; Guide-it™ gene editing tools; Tet-based inducible gene expression systems; and Living Colors® fluorescent proteins. These and other products support applications including NGS; gene discovery, regulation, and function studies; protein expression and purification; RNAi, gene editing, and stem cell studies; and plant and food research. For more information, visit www.clontech.com.

About Takara Bio Inc.

Takara Bio Inc. is an innovative biotechnology company based in Shiga, Japan. As a world leader in biotechnology research and development, Takara Bio was the first company to market PCR technology in Japan and is also the developer of the RetroNectin® reagent, which is used as a world standard in gene therapy protocols. In addition to providing research reagents and equipment to the life science research market, Takara Bio has active research and product development activities in the fields of gene and cell-based therapy and agricultural biotechnology; and is committed to preventing disease and improving the quality of life for all people through the use of biotechnology. Through strategic alliances with other industry leaders, Takara Bio aims to extend its reach around the world. More information is available at www.takara-bio.com.

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SOURCE Clontech Laboratories, Inc.

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