Find valuable information.

Optimize your animal health disease detection experiments to get the best results. We’ve compiled a detailed knowledge base of the top tips and tricks to meet your research needs.

View the relevant questions below:

Having problems with your experiment?  Visit our

Troubleshooting page

General

Please see our list of animal health products broken down by application.

Please contact Technical Support at animalhealthandfoodsafety@thermofisher.com for further information on how to reach your local sales representative.

ROX is a passive reference dye that is included in many qPCR master mixes. For more details on what it is and its use in qPCR, please check out our short video

Check out this short video to understand the different phases of the PCR reaction and why they are important.

Please view this short video which explains some best practices for replicates and plate setup.

In most cases your instrument software can automatically set the proper threshold for your data. Check out our short video for more information on how to set them.

We recommend running the Xeno Internal Positive Control with our animal health qPCR reagents as a positive control and to help determine whether or not a sample has inhibitors. Many animal health samples will not have a high level or any disease target, so running the Xeno control allows you to be confident that your qPCR reaction worked and that the absence of target signal is due to the true absence of the target instead of a reaction failure. We have Xeno Control Assays labeled with either VIC or LIZ.

We recommend one of the following assays:

  • VetMAX Xeno Internal Positive Control—VIC Assay (Cat. No. A29765)
  • VetMAX Xeno Internal Positive Control—LIZ Assay (Cat. No. A29766).

The VetMAX Xeno Internal Positive Control is derived from a plasmid source.

The quencher used in these assays is an Eclipse Q quencher. Within the qPCR instrument’s software, choose “none”.

We recommend validating this kit by using the VetMAX-Plus One-Step RT-PCR Kit protocol

Generally, we recommend using this master mix with standard cycling conditions, but depending on the assay being used, you could use fast cycling conditions with optimization. 

Yes, the qPCR master mix is supplied in the Green tube (3-Mix QPCV2).

The TaqMan assay for QPCV2 is labeled with FAM and quenched by NFQ (non-fluorescent quencher). The TaqMan assay for IPC is labeled with VIC and quenched with TAMRA.

The TaqMan assay for TUB is labeled with FAM and quenched by NFQ (non-fluorescent quencher). The TaqMan assay for IPC is labeled with VIC and quenched  by NFQ (non-fluorescent quencher).

The master mix used in the VetMAX PEDV/TGEV/SDCoV Kit is the TaqMan Fast Virus 1-Step Master Mix.

The TaqMan assay for PEDV RNA is labeled with LIZ, the TaqMan assay for TGEV is labeled with FAM, the TaqMan assay for SDCoV is labeled with VIC, and the TaqMan assay for the Xeno RNA is labeled with NED. All four TaqMan assays are combined in the VetMAX PEDV/TGEV/SDCoV Primer Probe Mix.

The VetMax MastiType Micro4 Kit detects Mycoplasma bovis, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, and Streptococcus uberis.

The VetMax MastiType Myco8 Kit detects Mycoplasma spp., Mycoplasma alkalescens, Mycoplasma bovis, Mycoplasma bovigenitalium, Mycoplasma canadense, Mycoplasma californicum, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus agalactiae.

The VetMax MastiType Multi Kit detects Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus spp. (including all major coagulase-negative staphylococci), Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Streptococcus uberis, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus spp. (incl. E. faecalis and E. faecium), Klebsiella oxytoca and/or Klebsiella pneumoniae, Serratia marcescens, Corynebacterium bovis, Trueperella pyogenes and/or Peptoniphilus indolicus, Staphylococcal beta-lactamase gene (penicillin-resistance gene), Mycoplasma bovis, Mycoplasma spp., Yeast, and Prototheca spp.

We recommend using the MagMAX CORE Nucleic Acid Purification Kit + MagMAX CORE Mastitis & Panbacteria Module (Cat. No. A40289) with the VetMAX MastiType kits.

Either the Applied Biosystems 7500/7500 Fast Real-Time PCR System or the QuantStudio 5 Real-Time PCR System may be used to run the VetMAX MastiType kits.

All VetMAX MastiType kits may be used with milk, bulk milk, frozen milk, or preserved milk (e.g., with bronopol).