What is a Polymerase Chain Reaction?
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) uses enzymes to mass replicate a portion of a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) strand for easier analysis, such as searching for genes of interest. Like the nuclear chain reaction, the polymerase chain reaction is an exponential process that proceeds as long as the raw materials for sustaining the reaction are available. In contrast to DNA replication in the natural world, the polymerase chain reaction can only replicate fairly small pieces of DNA, with an upper ceiling of about 2-3 kilo base pairs (kb). A polymerase chain reaction uses inanimate enzymes to accomplish its replication effect, setting it apart from other copying approaches that use active organisms. A modern polymerase chain reaction requires six basic components to work: the DNA segment to be copied, primers to delimit the segment, Taq polymerase to do the copying, DNA nucleotides to serve as feedstock, a chemical buffer environment, and a machine called a thermal cycler. The thermal cycle
