Author:
San Millán Rosario María,Martínez-Ballesteros Ilargi,Rementeria Aitor,Garaizar Javier,Bikandi Joseba
Abstract
Abstract
Background
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism of PCR products (PCR-RFLP) are extensively used molecular biology techniques. An exercise for the design and simulation of PCR and PCR-RFLP experiments will be a useful educational tool.
Findings
An online PCR and PCR-RFLP exercise has been create that requires users to find the target genes, compare them, design primers, search for restriction endonucleases, and finally to simulate the experiment. Each user of the service is randomly assigned a gene from Escherichia coli; to complete the exercise, users must design an experiment capable of distinguishing among E. coli strains. By applying the experimental procedure to all completely sequenced E. coli, a basic understanding of strain comparison and clustering can also be acquired. Comparison of results obtained in different experiments is also very instructive.
Conclusions
The exercise is freely available at http://insilico.ehu.es/edu.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine