In Situ Amplification

A major limitation of solution phase polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the inability to visualize and localize amplified product within cellular and tissue specimens. In situ hybrrdization (ISH) does permit localization of specific nucleic acid sequences at the individual cell level. In conventional nonisotopic in situ (IS) detection systems, most protocols do not detect single copy genes, except for those incorporating elaborate sandwich detection techniques as described by Herrington et al. (1 ).