TaqMan
TaqMan probes are hydrolysis probes that are designed to increase the specificity of quantitative PCR. The method was first reported in 1991 by researcher David Gefland at Cetus Corporation, and the technology was subsequently developed by Hoffmann-La Roche for diagnostic assays and by Applied Biosystems (now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific) for research applications. The TaqMan probe principle relies on the 5´–3´ exonuclease activity of Taq polymerase to cleave a dual-labeled probe during hybridization to the complementary target sequence and fluorophore-based detection.