What is a heterodimer primer?
A primer dimer (PD) is a potential by-product in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a common biotechnological method. As its name implies, a PD consists of two primer molecules that have attached (hybridized) to each other because of strings of complementary bases in the primers.
How do you design primers for PCR analysis?
PCR Primer Design Tips
- Aim for the GC content to be between 40 and 60% with the 3′ of a primer ending in G or C to promote binding.
- A good length for PCR primers is generally around 18-30 bases.
- Try to make the melting temperature (Tm) of the primers between 65°C and 75°C, and within 5°C of each other.
How do you measure primer dimerization?
How can I tell if I have primer-dimers in my PCR reaction? In quantitative (real-time) PCR, primer-dimers will appear as a peak with a Tm lower than the Tm of the specific product. This peak will also appear in the no-template control (NTC).
Why is primer dimer bad?
Avoiding primer-dimers Primer-dimer is when the PCR product obtained is the result of amplification of the primers themselves. This sets up a competitive annealing situation between the template and the primer-dimer product during amplification, negatively affecting results downstream.
How do you prevent primer dimers?
i suggest one (or more) of the following solutions:
- increase the annealing temperature.
- increase time\ temperature of template denaturation.
- decrease primers concentration(10 pmol will be OK)
- use a PCR enhancer such as DMSO.
- Check out your template.
- use high quality Tag.
How do you find the primer sequence?
You will start to get sequence ~20 bp downstream of your primer. If the PCR product is <800 bp then your sequence should run toward the opposing primer and will end around 5-10 bp from the end of your PCR product. From here you should be able to get an approximation of the primer binding site in your target gene.
How do you assess primers?
To find out if your primers are binding at the right position on your template, you could apply BLASTn. It will reveal the expected binding positions and indicate the orientation of the binding as well. This is especially useful to check the orientation of the reverse primer.
Why does primer dimer happen?
Mostly primer dimers are seen due to high concentration of the primer in the PCR reaction mixture. Or if there is no PCR amplification and you can see on primer dimer in the agarose gel. If are able to see the PCR product then you can reduce the concentration of the prime and keep the other conditions same.