INTRODUCTION On April 25, 1953 James D. Watson and Francis Crick publish "a radically different structure" for DNA, thereby founding the field of Molecular Genetics. Their structure involves two strands of complementary base-paired DNA, running in opposite directions as a double helix. They conclude their report saying that "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postul...

George Maltezos, Alvaro Gomez, Jiang Zhong, Frank A. Gomez, and Axel Scherer Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, MS 200-36 Pasadena, California 91125, USA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, California 90032-8202, USA Keck School of Medi...

s The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence. PCR is now a common and often indispensable technique used in medical and biological research labs for a variety of applications. There are three major steps in...

Quantitative PCR assays are now the standard method for viral diagnostics. These assays must be specific, as well as sensitive, to detect the potentially low starting copy number of viral genomic material. We describe a new technique, polymerase chain displacement reaction (PCDR), which uses multiple nested primers in a rapid, capped, one-tube reaction that increases the sensitivity of normal q...

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a powerful and widely used technique that has greatly advanced our ability to analyze genes. Genomic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) present in cells contains many thousands of genes. This makes it difficult to isolate and analyze any individual gene. PCR allows specific DNA sequences, usually corresponding to genes or parts of genes, to be copied from genomic...

A PCR-coupled ligase chain reaction (LCR) assay was developed to distinguish the plant pathogenic bacterium Erwinia stewartii from other erwiniae. This new technique allows discrimination to the species level on the basis of a single-base-pair difference in the 16S rRNA gene which is unique to E. stewartii. Portions of the 16S rRNA genes ofE. stewartii and the closely related Erwinia herbicola ...