Abstract

A thermostable DNA polymerase was used in an in vitro DNA amplification procedure, the polymerase chain reaction. The enzyme, isolated from Thermus aquaticus , greatly simplifies the procedure and, by enabling the amplification reaction to be performed at higher temperatures, significantly improves the specificity, yield, sensitivity, and length of products that can be amplified. Single-copy genomic sequences were amplified by a factor of more than 10 million with very high specificity, and DNA segments up to 2000 base pairs were readily amplified. In addition, the method was used to amplify and detect a target DNA molecule present only once in a sample of 10 5 cells.

Keywords

Thermus aquaticusMultiple displacement amplificationHot start PCRDNA polymerasePrimer dimerPolymerase chain reactionPrimer (cosmetics)Molecular biologyTaq polymeraseDNABiologyPolymerase chain reaction optimizationgenomic DNAPolymeraseRecombinase Polymerase AmplificationBase pairApplications of PCRChemistryGeneticsDigital polymerase chain reactionMultiplex polymerase chain reactionDNA extractionGene

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Publication Info

Year
1988
Type
article
Volume
239
Issue
4839
Pages
487-491
Citations
17102
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Randall K. Saiki, David H. Gelfand, Susanne Stoffel et al. (1988). Primer-Directed Enzymatic Amplification of DNA with a Thermostable DNA Polymerase. Science , 239 (4839) , 487-491. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.2448875

Identifiers

DOI
10.1126/science.2448875