nomenclature - (Oct/06/2005 )

someone in another post asked whether it was "RT PCR" or "real time PCR"

I find the RT to be confusing

RT=real time
RT=reverse transcription

sometimes the two are combined

I usually use RT referring to reverse transcription and qPCR referring to real-time PCR. I would use "RT-PCR" to mean one-step reverse-transcription PCR

What is common usage? Is this correct? What does everyone else say?

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Hello!
You are right. RT-PCR means reverse transcription-PCR of RNA samples that become reversely transcripted to cDNA. Realtime-PCR, using reverse transcription is called qRT-PCR where q stands for quantitative.

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I also use RT-PCR to mean two step RT-PCR where samples are RT'd in one tube and then aliquots of this cDNA are PCR'd, not just for the single tube reverse transcription PCRs...

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