RNA polymerase? - (Jun/05/2006 )

Does anyone have any suggestions for a RNA polymerase that is not DNA-dependent and that will provide at lease single base extension?

I am just starting to look into RNA and am not very familiar at all. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

what are you trying to do?

I am hoping to use an RNA primer (oligo) to bind to RNA and then use some kind of polymerase to extend and fill in a gap.

Since I am not familiar with RNA I have no idea if this will work, or if there is even a polymerse for RNA that acts like Taq DNA polymerase.

I guess what I am asking is: Is there an RNA polymerase equivalent to Taq that will work in a reaction similar to PCR?

you could try reverse transcriptase, but they aren't too heat-stable, so you could do your reaction just once most likely, and not get exponential as you would with Taq. Also, you RNA itself probably won't survive too much denaturation cycles.

Thanks, I'll try the reverse transcriptase. I only need a single base extension and this should work fine. I'll get cDNA and then I can amplify with Taq.

Thanks again