Real-time and quantitative PCR: applications to mechanism-based toxicology.

There is increasing awareness that quantitative analysis of changes in molecular targets plays a key role in addressing scientific questions in molecular toxicology, molecular epidemiology, and human risk assessment. One of the emerging technologies that is being used to analyze these molecular targets is real-time and quantitative (RTAQ) polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The aim of this review is to provide the reader with an overview of this technology and to highlight specific applications of this technology to some key areas of molecular toxicology. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Biochem Mol Toxicol 15:121-127, 2001