Analysis and sampling Molecular biology
In medicine, this discipline is devoted to the study of molecules carrying hereditary information (DNA, RNA), their structure, their synthesis and their mutations. At the center of molecular biology there is a technique that continues to develop every day : PCR or Polymerase Chain Reaction. It is an enzymatic reaction which makes it possible to select and amplify in very large quantities a particular DNA fragment (the target), which is present in a very small quantity at the start in a sample, among millions of other fragments.
Each analysis consists of three main steps :
Target capture and extraction
Target Amplification
Detection of amplification products
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In practice the PCR is a series of cycles, which are repeated in a loop : on average, a PCR comprises between 20 and 40 cycles.
In medicine, there are three main applications :
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Detection and identification of infectious agents, whether of viral (hepatitis), bacterial (Escherichia coli), fungal (Candida) or parasitic (Toxoplasma) origin.
Detection and identification of genetic disease (myopathy) or genetic predisposition (HLA Class II and gluten intolerance)
Detection and identification of genetic mutation within tumor cells in the case of cancer (NRAS gene in melanoma)
NGS or Next Generation Sequencing technology now makes it possible to sequence the DNA or RNA of any organism very quickly and thus precisely determine its genome. This rapidly developing technology is becoming more democratic and will revolutionize our approach, particularly in the field of genetics.
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Molecular biology is involved in all areas of the laboratory : hematology, clinical chemistry, immunology, microbiology, cytology and histology. The Espace Lab laboratory has equipped itself with a very modern technical platform in molecular biology in order to provide rapid and reliable results to practitioners in their daily lives.
