Mentype® Chimera® kit was developed as an application for chimerism monitoring after bone marrow transplantation. The assay allows to study whether the post-transplant graft has adapted to the recipient and allows early detection of rejection.
In one PCR reaction, the twelve polymorphic autosomal Short Tandem Repeat (STR) loci D2S1360, D3S1744, D4S2366, D5S2500, D6S474, D7S1517, D8S1132, D10S2325, D12S391, D18S51, D21S2055, and SE33 (ACTBP2) as well as the gender-specific marker Amelogenin are amplified simultaneously. The primers are fluorescence-labeled with 6-FAM™, BTG or BTY.
The STR loci were chosen with respect to their high discrimination power. Most of the highly polymorphic markers were validated by monitoring chimerism of over 200 HLA-matched related donor-recipient-pairs (Thiede et al., 2004).
The Mentype® Chimera® PCR Amplification Kit is very sensitive. The detection limit is less than 200 pg genomic DNA. Recipient fractions of less then 5 % are still detectable, so that residual cells or recurrence can be monitored.
