Hot Start Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

Abstract

The purpose of hot start polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is to optimize the yield of the desired amplified product in PCRs and, simultaneously, to suppress nonspecific amplification and formation of primer dimers. This is achieved by withholding an essential component of the PCR—the DNA polymerase, or the primers, for example—until the reaction mixture has been heated to a temperature that inhibits hybridization of primers to one another or to nonspecific regions of the template.