Rapid nonisotopic analysis of glutamate receptor gene expression using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.

We describe a simple nonisotopic method for analyzing receptor gene expression using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and laser densitometry of agarose gels. Densitometry of known amounts of double stranded DNA molecular weight standards was used to estimate yield of glutamate receptor RT-PCR product (in ng DNA) obtained from rat brain. While unable to provide absolute quantitation of gene expression, this method using standard techniques allows for rapid analysis of relative levels of receptor gene expression without using radioactivity.