Describe the roles of heat, primers and the bacterium Thermus aquaticus in the process of PCR .

Pramod Rout · 25th Aug 2019 .

Baivabi Ahuja · 25th Aug 2019 .

In the process of PCR (polymerase chain reaction), the role of heat, primer and Thermus aquaticus is as follows:

(i) Heat - This step is known as denaturation. In this, the target DNA is heated to a high temperature (94° to 96°C) resulting in the separation of two strands.

(ii) Primer : In this step, i.e., annealing, the two oligonucleotide primers anneal to each of the ssDNA template since the sequence of the primers is complementary to the 3ï‚¢ ends of the template DNA. Presence of primer is important for polymerisation to take place. Temperature (40°C – 60°C) is kept low depending on the length and sequence of primers.

(iii) Thermusaquaticus : It is asourceofthermostable DNA polymerase (Taq polymerase). It is used in the final step of PCR called polymerisation. This helps in synthesis of DNA region between the primers, using deoxynucleoside triphosphates and Mg2+

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