Can I use kits other than the Qiagen QuantiTect Kit for sample preparation?
Yes. Although the MJ Opticon machines have originally been optimized to work with the Qiagen Quantitect SyBr Green PCR Kit, the system works fine both with home-made kits and with kits provided by other companies. Here at the UDSF, we have tested a few kits from different companies. Based on these results, we discourage to change the kit supplier, once a choice has been made, as performance and melting temperatures associated with a given primer pair strongly depend on the composition of the reaction mix, which is different among kits from different suppliers.
