Polymerase chain reaction

• What is the polymerase chain reaction?

  A technique used to amplify the amount of DNA
• What does DNA polymerase do?


  Joins nucleotides
• Why is DNA polymerase obtained from heat-resistant bacteria?


  So it doesn’t denature due to high temperatures provided by the thermocycler
• What are primers?


  Have short sequences of nucleotides that have a set of bases complementary to those at one end of the two DNA fragments
• What is a thermocycler?


  A machine that varies temperature over time
• What are the stages of the polymerase chain reaction?

  Denaturation

  Annealing

  Synthesis of DNA
• What is annealing?


  Addition of primers
• What are the advantages of in vitro cloning?

  • Very fast
  • Doesn’t require living cells
• What does in vitro mean?

  In non-living organisms