tomato DNA for PCR template - (Apr/06/2001 )

I'm trying to measure telomere length and telomerase activity in some precancerous cells to see if it is predictive of development into cancer. Has any body have any idea whether the Boehringer Manheim kit for telomerase activity is any good? Also, does anybody know of any easy way to measure telomere length (i.e. kit?)Gotta take the easy way out of this.

Tesu

Dirty DNA will give a lot of junk if you try to PCR it. If you have many bands or smears, gel purify it first. The blender will certainly shear large chromosomal DNA, so that may be a bad thing to do. Also, don't use too much as a template--I generally use 10-50 ng as template (in bacteria and yeast--in higher eukarotes, I wouldn't go much higher than 200 ng--do more cycles if you need more product).