PCR has been described as a copying machine for _______.
Adv.
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) has been described as a copying machine for quickly producing many copies of a specific segment of DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid).
The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is used to synthesize numerous copies of a particular DNA fragment. PCR technique is a very simple procedure, which consumes little time. In order to carry out the reaction, only four materials are needed. They are, DNA fragment, group of DNA nucleotides, DNA polymerase enzyme and primer sequence.
The double stranded DNA fragment is taken and denatured by applying heat. This causes the two strands to unwind and separate. The solution is cooled and primer sequence is added. Primer attaches to each of the single DNA strand through complementary base pairing. The next step involves addition of DNA polymerase enzyme. As primer is already present, the DNA polymerase enzyme synthesizes the complementary strand along each of the single strand of DNA. Thus, when the reaction gets completed, the original DNA gets doubled.
A single polymerase chain reaction cycle gets completed within to minutes, which means that by the end of minutes, million copies of the DNA fragment can be synthesized.