2) A scientist wants to increase the amount of sample of a DNA sequence of 100 bps. Calculate the number cycles of PCR required to generate 1 ng of DNA, when starting from a single copy. Note that the molar mass of an average DNA bp is 600 g/mol.

PCR is an exponential copying of the template strands and can be represented by the function: y = a * 2n, where a is the initial number of template copies and n is equal to the number of cycles PCR has gone through.  How many DNA fragments would be produced after: 15 cycles? 13 cycles with 13 starting template strands? 29 cycles with 32 starting template strands?

1.) What are the different temperatures used in PCR (polymerase chain reaction)?   What happens at each temperature?   2.) What ingredients are used in PCR?  What role does each ingredient have in replicating DNA?   3.) Why is the contamination of foreign DNA a particularly important problem when you do PCR?

PCR is a molecular biology technique where template DNA is amplified using a primer and oligonucleotides. The reaction is catalyzed by a thermostable DNA polymerase and in a particular reaction, the template strands are denatured at 95˚C. For strand hybridization, the melting temperature is 55˚C. What do you predict about the average duration of H bonds at the high temperature in comparison to the low temperature?