Polymerase Chain Reaction
Synonyms
Anchored PCR
Anchored Polymerase Chain Reaction
Inverse PCR
Inverse Polymerase Chain Reaction
Nested PCR
Nested Polymerase Chain Reaction
PCR
PCR, Anchored
PCR, Inverse
PCR, Nested
Polymerase Chain Reactions
Reaction, Polymerase Chain
Reactions, Polymerase Chain
In vitro method for producing large amounts of specific DNA or RNA fragments of defined length and sequence from small amounts of short oligonucleotide flanking sequences (primers). The essential steps include thermal denaturation of the double-stranded target molecules, annealing of the primers to their complementary sequences, and extension of the annealed primers by enzymatic synthesis with DNA polymerase. The reaction is efficient, specific, and extremely sensitive. Uses for the reaction include disease diagnosis, detection of difficult-to-isolate pathogens, mutation analysis, genetic testing, DNA sequencing, and analyzing evolutionary relationships.