Question

What diseases can PCR detect?

Answer 1

PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction): It is a molecular method that is a quick and accurate method of diagnosing infectious illnesses and genetic alterations.

Each cycle of the polymerase chain reaction has three steps. They are:

1. Denaturation: Denaturation also leads to the formation of single strands of DNA.
2. Annealing: Here the reaction temperature is generally lowered to allow complementary base pairing between the primer and complementary part of the single strands of the DNA template.
3. Extension: A thermostable DNA polymerase is generally used for the said purpose at a temperature of 75-80 ℃ (72℃).
   PCR can detect the following disease:

1. HIV
2. Malaria
3. Anthrax
4. Pertussis
5. Tuberculosis
6. COVID-19