Transgenomic, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: TBIO) announced today the launch of its SURVEYOR Scan K-RAS kit, the first in a family of mutation detection kits the company plans to offer featuring its proprietary SURVEYOR Nuclease and WAVE® HS DHPLC platform. SURVEYOR Scan technology is a novel approach to mutation detection that uses a PCR amplification reaction and hybridization to form heteroduplex DNA molecules in samples with K-RAS mutation. A digestion step is performed using SURVEYOR Nuclease, which cuts the DNA strands at mismatched base pairs. The different sized pieces of DNA are recognized as additional peaks on a chromatogram when compared to non-mutant DNA. K-RAS mutations are associated with lack of response to therapies directed against the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in colorectal cancer.
"For several years SURVEYOR technology has been recognized as having superior detection capability over standard sequencing, and so we have developed it into a user-friendly kit for K-RAS," said Transgenomic's Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Eric Kaldjian. "In addition to detecting the most common activating mutations, it also detects other mutations that current sequence-specific methods will not find. This technology will have very practical extensions to tumor suppressor genes, such as p53, in which mutations of clinical significance may be present throughout a gene."