title: PRaTo: a web-tool to select optimal primer pairs for qPCR.
abstract: An essential pre-requisite to perform sound quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays is to design outstanding primer pairs. This means they must have a good efficiency and be not prone to produce multiple amplicons or primer dimer products. To circumvent these issues, several softwares are available to help primer design. Although satisfactory computer-aided primer design tools are available for standard PCR, less efforts were done to provide specific methods for selection of optimal primer pairs for qPCR. We have developed PRaTo a web-based tool that enables checking and ranking of primers pairs for their attitude to perform optimally and reliably when used in qPCR experiments. PRaTo is available at http://prato.daapv.unipd.it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Agronomy and Crop Productions, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy. alberto.nonis@unipd.it
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nonis
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Scortegagna
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nonis
authors.forename: Benedetto
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ruperti
mesh_terms: D017931:DNA Primers / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D020407:Internet; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers