Question

After 12 pcr cycles how many dna strands would be available?

Answer 1

4096 strands.

Step-by-step explanation:

PCR (polymerase chain reaction) can be defined as a method in molecular biology, which is used for the in vitro amplification of DNA molecules. It involves three steps, denaturation of double-stranded DNA, primer annealing, and extension.

During denaturation, double stranded DNA (dsDNA) gets separated to produce template strand for the synthesis of new DNA molecules. The next step includes annealing of designed primers with parent DNA strands.

Extension involves extension of daughter DNA strands to get desired DNA molecules. At the end of each cycle, the number of DNA molecules get doubled as each dsDNA provides two daughter molecules.

The total number of the molecules, produced after 'n' numbers of cycle can be calculated as
`2^n`.

So, if we start with one DNA molecule, the total DNA molecules after 12 cycles will be-

`2^(12)=4096`

Answer 2

PCR or polymerase chain reaction refers to a procedure used to exponentially increase a particular target DNA sequence, permitting the sequencing, isolation, or cloning of a single sequence in many.

The number of double-stranded DNA segments is doubled in each of the cycles so that after n cycle one will have 2^n copies of DNA. For example, after 10 cycles one will have 1024 copies of DNA strands. Therefore, after 12 cycles of PCR one will have about 4096 copies of DNA strands.