Uses of Synthetic Primers
For the organic chemistry involved, see Oligonucleotide synthesis. For possible methods involving primers, see Nucleic acid methods.DNA sequencing is used to determine the nucleotides in a DNA strand; the chain termination method (dideoxy sequencing or Sanger method) uses a primer as a start marker for the chain reaction.
In PCR, primers are used to determine the DNA fragment to be amplified by the PCR process. The length of primers is usually not more than 30 (usually 18–24) nucleotides, and they need to match the beginning and the end of the DNA fragment to be amplified. They direct replication towards each other – the extension of one primer by polymerase then becomes the template for the other, leading to an exponential increase in the target segment.
It is worth noting that primers are not essentially always necessary for DNA synthesis and can in fact be used by viral polymerases, e.g. influenza, for RNA synthesis.
Read more about this topic: Primer (molecular Biology)
Famous quotes containing the word synthetic:
“In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sap and seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it—and tries to live off philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)