Question

Why is annealing important in PCR?

Answer 1

Annealing is important in PCR because:

By hydrogen bonding, annealing allows the primers to connect to a specific spot on the single-stranded template DNA.

Annealing:

1. Single strands of DNA are used as primers.
2. The primers are designed to work in tandem with short portions of DNA on both ends of the sequence to be replicated.
3. Primers are the building blocks of DNA synthesis. Only a double strand of DNA can be added by the polymerase enzyme.
4. The polymerase enzyme can only attach and begin creating the new complementary strand of DNA from the loose DNA bases once the primer has bonded.
5. Because the two separated strands of DNA are complementary and flow in opposite directions (from one end, the 5' end, to the other, the 3' end), two primers are needed: a forward primer and a reverse primer.