Figure 1

Primers and probes design. The positions of each primer relative to BCR (gray box) and ABL1 (white box) exonic sequences are indicated by arrows. The relative positions of each of the three TaqMan probes, carrying a unique combination of dye and quencher (•) for real-time amplicon detection in the FAM, ROX or Cy5 color channels of the 7500 instrument, are also shown. The reverse primer specific for ABL1 exon a2 carries a 5′ label (▪) to enable subsequent detection of the BCR–ABL1 amplicons in the FAM channel of a CE instrument. Primer and probe sequences were checked against databases and designed to avoid common polymorphisms such as the T to C substitution in BCR exon 13. Norm (dark gray box) is a synthetic sequence with no significant homology to known genomic sequences.