Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
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Definition
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using a method used to amplify a small amount of DNA in order to allow scientist to study it in detail[1]. RNA can also be extracted from samples and converted into complimentary DNA (cDNA) for PCR amplification [4]. Primers are used to identify the location of the DNA in the sample.
Primers
PCR primers are single strands of DNA used to identify the location of the DNA in the sample. This refers to a small set of nucleotides in DNA. For archaea and bacteria primers that are ubiquitous to the 16s ribosomal RNA (rRNA) are used [1,2,3,5,6]