Pyrophosphorolysis Activated Polymerization (PAP)

PAP is a next generation of nucleic acid amplification technology. Unlike traditional PCR, this technology introduces a brand new principle in which two distinct steps (pyrophosphorolysis and polymerization) are serially coupled by polymerase using a blocked primer.  

PAP produces an exceptionally high level of selectivity or specificity. It can detect a single copy of DNA or RNA mutant molecule in 1 billion of almost identical wild type molecules without false positive amplifications. This level of selectivity is over 1,000,000 times more than that of PCR or any other technologies (Figure 1, Table 1). 

In addition, its sensitivity or detection limit can reliably detect a single copy of target, over 100 times more than that of PCR (Figure 1, Table 1).

Actually, it is literally changing the paradigm of early detection of cancer, such as ultra-high sensitive, early detection of cancer drug resistance from plasma or urine.  

Footnotes of Table 1.

a. Sensitivity or detection limit: the ability to detect the smallest copy number of the target nucleic acid molecule.
b. Selectivity: the ability to detect a small copy number of the target molecule in a large amount of wild type background without false positive amplifications.
c. When the copy number of the target molecule, such as a mutant in cancer cells, is ≤ 0.1% of the wild type background.