Glossary
The state-of-the-art glossary for Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia.
PCR
PCR in the glossary for Waldenström's macroglobulinemia
PCR (polymerase chain reaction) – A technology used to amplify fragments of DNA exponentially.
PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is a technology used to amplify fragments of DNA exponentially. There are numerous applications for PCR including genotyping, cloning, mutation detection, pathogen detection, sequencing, microarrays and forensics. The majority of PCR methods rely on thermal cycling. Thermal cycling exposes reactants to repeated cycles of heating and cooling to permit different temperature-dependent reactions – specifically, DNA melting and enzyme-driven DNA replication. Almost all PCR applications employ a heat-stable DNA polymerase (such as Taq polymerase), because heat-susceptible polymerases would denature under the high temperatures of the denaturation step.
Glossary overview