Harvard Catalyst Profiles

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.

Below are MeSH descriptors whose meaning is more general than "Polymerase Chain Reaction".

Below are MeSH descriptors whose meaning is related to "Polymerase Chain Reaction".

Below are MeSH descriptors whose meaning is more specific than "Polymerase Chain Reaction".