pcr, restriction enzymes, and dna sequencing

polymerase chain reaction

a technique used to amplify a specific dna segment exponentially using cycles of heating and cooling

primer

a short strand of dna or rna that provides a starting point for dna synthesis

anneal or hybridize

the process by which primers bind to their complementary sequences on the template dna during pcr

pcr cycle

one round of denaturation, annealing, and extension steps in pcr, repeated multiple times to amplify dna

pcr product

the dna fragment that is amplified during the pcr process

agarose gel electrophoresis

a technique used to separate dna fragments by size using an electric field in an agarose gel matrix

plasmid

a small circular dna molecule used as a vector to carry foreign dna into a host cell

restriction enzyme

an enzyme that cuts dna at specific recognition sequences, often used in cloning

cloning

the process of creating identical copies of dna fragments by inserting them into a plasmid vector and then into host cells to be copied

sanger sequencing

a method of dna sequencing that uses chain terminating nucleotides to generate dna fragments of varying lengths

chain terminating nucleotides

modified nucleotides that stop dna synthesis when incorporated, used in sanger sequencing