The EpiScope MSP Kitfeatures a reagent designed exclusively for DNA methylation analysis via methylation-specific PCR (MSP) (Herman et al. 1996). This reagent contains a specific enzyme in an optimized buffer, allowing MSP analyseson bisulfite-treated, uracil-containing DNA templates. This kit features high amplification efficiency and methylation specificity compared with standard PCR. The EpiScope MSP Kit is optimized for real-time monitoring using TB Green, enabling the performance of both real-time and endpoint PCR under the same reaction conditions.

Principle of MSP

Methylation-specific PCR identifies nucleotide regions in which cytosines have been altered to uracils following bisulfite treatment of the DNA template. These alterations are a function of the DNA template"s CpG methylation status; methylated cytosines remain unaltered while the unmethylated cytosines are altered to uracils. Two primers are designed to detect these unaltered or altered regions, the methylated CpG DNA primer (M primer) and the unmethylated CpG DNA primer (UM primer), respectively. The last step involves methylation-specific PCR.