The role of polymerase chain reaction and its newer developments in feline medicine.

We give a brief overview on the principles of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR), quantitative competitive PCR and real-time PCR (TaqMan technology). The literature dealing with PCR and its role in the diagnosis, pathogenesis and research of infectious diseases of the domestic cat is reviewed. Cross-contaminations which occasionally occur during handling of amplified DNA may be an important problem in the PCR laboratory. In many infectious diseases, PCR results are difficult to interpret as their predictive positive and negative values are not always known. Newer assays, such as TaqMan procedures, are becoming increasingly reliable and cost-effective. It can be expected that additional knowledge on how to interpret PCR results will soon be available. Copyright 1999 W.B. Saunders Company Ltd.