Measuring of DNA Damage by Quantitative PCR

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 amplification essentially double the amount of the target DNA synthesized in the previous cycle (1).