PCR is an in vitro method of nucleic acid synthesis by which a particular segment of DNA can be specifically replicated. It involves two oligonucleotide primer that flank the DNA fragment to be amplified and repeated cycles of heat denaturation of the DNA, annealing of the primers to their complementary sequences, and extension of the annealed primers with DNA polymerase. Successive cycles of a...

PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), a method which replicates a selected sequence of DNA, has revolutionized the study of genomic material, but mathematical study of the process has been limited to simple deterministic models or descriptions relying on stochastic processes. In this paper we develop a suite of deterministic models for the reactions of quantitative PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) ba...

Reverse transcription followed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis, or qRT-PCR, is an extremely sensitive, cost-effective method for quantifying gene transcripts from plant cells. The availability of nonspecific double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) binding fluorophors, such as SYBR Green, and 384-well-plate real-time PCR machines that can measure fluorescence at the end of each PCR cycle ...

Reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) represents a sensitive and powerful tool for analyzing RNA. While it has tremendous potential for quantitative applications, a comprehensive knowledge of its technical aspects is required. Successful quantitative RT-PCR involves correction for experimental variations in individual RT and PCR efficiencies. This review addresses the mathematics of RT-PCR, choice...

In recent years, several methylation-specific PCR-based techniques have been developed to identify and characterize hypermethylation of CpG dinucleotides with the primary goal of elucidating a better understanding of the role of DNA methylation in important biological processes, such as chromosome X inactivation and carcinogenesis. The specificity of methylation-specific PCR (MSP) techniques re...