The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and dideoxy DNA sequencing are frequently used techniques of molecular biology which utilise DNA polymerases. The high temperatures required for PCR necessitate a thermostable enzyme for DNA amplification, and DNA polymerase derived from the thermophilic microorganism, Thermus aquaticus, is used most commonly. The high optimal polymerisation temperature of th...

Transcriptional slippage is a class of error in which ribonucleic acid (RNA) polymerase incorporates nucleotides out of register, with respect to the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) template. This phenomenon is involved in gene regulation mechanisms and in the development of diverse diseases. The bacteriophage λ N protein reduces transcriptional slippage within actively growing cells and in vitro. ...

We describe a photochemical procedure for the sterilization of polynucleotides that are created by the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). The procedure is based upon the blockage of Taq DNA polymerase when it encounters a photochemically modified base in a polynucleotide strand. We have discovered reagents that can be added to a PCR reaction mixture prior to amplification and tolerate the thermal...

It is generally believed that sequence heterogeneity in PCR products from fossil remains are due to regular DNA polymerase errors as well as miscoding lesions compounded by damage in the template DNA (Pääbo 1990; Handt et al. 1994b, 1996; Höss et al. 1996; Krings et al. 1997). However, it has been difficult to test the frequency with which this assumption holds. First, DNA extractions from foss...

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method is widely used for the reproduction and amplification of specific DNA segments, and a novel PCR method using nanomaterials such as gold nanoparticles has recently been reported. This paper reports on the effects of superparamagnetic nanoparticles on PCR amplification without an external magnetic field, and clarifies the mechanism behind the effects of ...

The effects of 5 factors (template DNA, Mg(2+), dNTPs, Taq DNA polymerase, and primer) on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were investigated to optimize the start codon targeted polymor-phism (SCoT)-PCR system of Dactylis glomerata L., using an orthogo-nal design L16 (4(5)). A suitable SCoT-PCR system for D. glomerata was established; the 20 μL reaction volume contained 3.0 mM Mg(2+), 0.2 mM...

We report here the rational design and optimization of an antibody-responsive, DNA-based device that enables communication between pairs otherwise non-interacting proteins. The is designed to recognize bind a specific antibody and, in response, undergo conformational change leads release DNA strand, termed “translator,” regulates activity downstream target protein. As proof principle, we demons...

Point mutations in somatic cells play a role in the etiology of several classes of human pathologies. Experimental procedures are required that allow the detection and quantitation of such mutations in disease-related genes in tissue biopsy samples without the need for the selection of mutated cells. We describe the genotypic analysis of single base pair mutations in the Taq I endonuclease reco...