One unit is the amount of enzyme activity that incorporates 1 nmol of dTTP into acid insoluble fraction in 10 minutes at 42°C when poly(A)+ RNA and oligo(dT)20 are used as template–primer.
Exonuclease assay
Linearized lambda/HindIII fragments are incubated with the Reverse Transcriptase in a 50 µl reaction mixture for 4 hours at 37°C. No degradation of DNA was observed.
Endonuclease/Nick Activity
Supercoiled plasmid DNA is incubated with the enzyme in a 50 µl reaction mixture for 4 hours at 37°C. No conversion of covalently closed circular DNA to nicked DNA detected.
Contamination with E. coli DNA
Absence of E. coli genomic DNA is confirmed by qPCR using a sample of the enzyme and specific primers targeting the E. coli 16S rRNA gene. No contamination detected.
RNase Assay
An RNA template is incubated with the enzyme in a 20 µl reaction mixture for 1 hour at 42°C. No RNA degradation observed.
Functional Assay
cDNA synthesis with oligo(dT) and/or hexamer primers, followed by PCR.