The challengers to PCR: a proliferation of chain reactions

• Published in: Current opinion in biotechnology Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 95 - 97
• Main Author: Landegren, Ulf
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.02.1996
• Subjects: Base Sequence; Cloning, Molecular; DNA - analysis; DNA - chemistry; Genome; Humans; Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods; LCR ligase chain reaction; 3SR self-sustained sequence replication; PCR polymerase chain reaction; DDQ detection, distinction and quantification; SDA strand displacement amplification; NASBA nucleic acid sequence based amplification
• ISSN: 0958-1669; 1879-0429
• DOI: 10.1016/S0958-1669(96)80102-9

When molecular cloning came of age around 1970, it became a routine matter to synthesize desired amounts of any DNA molecule in bacteria. This watershed was followed in 1985 by a second breakthrough: the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for DNA amplification. The PCR technique makes light work of obtaining useful quantities of any DNA segment of interest, using a simple in vitro procedure and, in the process, bringing two very important attributes to DNA analysis: first, it efficiently recognizes specific DNA segments in complex mixtures of nucleic acids, by requiring that two independent probes recognize the target molecule; and second, it generates many copies of the target molecules, thus simplifying any downstream analysis. So, why would anyone attempt to replace this extremely useful procedure and, moreover, can we expect new DNA analysis strategies that may present advantages over amplification reactions?