A new method to synthesize competitor RNAs for accurate analyses by competitive RT-PCR

A method to synthesize competitor RNAs as internal standards for competitive RT-PCR is improved by using the long accurate PCR (LA-PCR) technique. Competitor templates synthesized by the new method are almost the same in length, and possibly in secondary structure, as target mRNAs to be quantified except that they include the short deletion within the segments to be amplified. This allows the reverse transcription to be achieved with almost the same efficiency from both target mRNAs and competitor RNAs. Therefore, more accurate quantification can be accomplished by using such competitor RNAs.