Correction to: Viral Immunol 2017;30:298–301. DOI: 10.1089/vim.2016.0152

In the May 2017 issue of Viral Immunology (vol. 30, no. 4; 298–301), in the article titled “IL17A Polymorphism Is Not Associated with Human T-Lymphotropic Virus 1-Associated Myelopathy/Tropical Spastic Paraparesis” by Neco et al., experiments were performed using Taqman probes and real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) technique. However, the acronym RT-qPCR was used in the article, which the authors believe is not adequate to define this technique. The authors prefer to state they performed real-time PCR, and so have made the following corrections:

In the article Abstract, the sentence was changed to The single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping was carried out by real time PCR using TaqMan^® probes. In the Materials and Methods section, the sentence was changed to The G-197A polymorphism genotyping was performed by real time PCR using the TaqMan^® SNP Genotyping Assay Kit (ID C_15879983_10), according to the manufacturer's instructions (Applied Biosystems, ABI, Foster City, CA), under the following conditions: 10 min at 95°C, followed by 40 cycles (15 sec at 92°C followed by 60 sec at 60°C) and 30 sec at 60°C.

By way of explanation, older articles use the term RT-PCR referring to real-time PCR, while current articles refer to reverse transcription PCR. Thus, to avoid confusion with acronyms and following the Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments (MIQE) (1), the authors would like to explain each term below:

qPCR (Quantitative PCR): Also known as real-time polymerase chain reaction, in this method the input material is DNA, and its quantification is performed after each amplification cycle, usually by using fluorescent probes.

RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-PCR) and RT-qPCR (Quantitative Reverse Transcription PCR [RT-qPCR]): The input material is RNA, which is transcribed into complementary DNA (cDNA) by reverse transcriptase enzyme. In this technique, cDNA is used as a template for a qPCR reaction.