Open AccessSpatiotemporal Regulation of Metal Ions in the Polymerase Chain Reaction
Author(s) -
Xianjing Zhang,
Jun Guo,
Bo Song,
Feng Zhang
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
acs omega
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2470-1343
DOI - 10.1021/acsomega.2c04507
Subject(s) - amplicon , polymerase chain reaction , metal ions in aqueous solution , ion , ionic bonding , metal , polymerase chain reaction optimization , dna , annealing (glass) , dna sequencing , chemistry , biophysics , materials science , nanotechnology , computational biology , biology , biochemistry , gene , multiplex polymerase chain reaction , organic chemistry , composite material
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been widely used in medical diagnosis and forensic identification due to its ultrahigh sensitivity and signal amplification. Metal ions (i.e., Cu 2+ , Zn 2+ ) have been considered PCR inhibitors and rarely shown their positive roles in PCR amplification until our report, in which we discovered that metal ions can significantly improve the PCR specificity and the yield of target DNA sequences. For an in-depth investigation with taking copper ions as a typical model, here we found an interesting spatiotemporal regulation mechanism of metal ions in PCR. The ionic concentration window for improving PCR specificity not only was independent of annealing temperature but also can be well regulated by both the annealing time and extension time. Using the ionic concentration window as a measure, the time affects either the amount or the sequence length of nonspecific amplicons in the space. The mechanism proposed in this work will deepen our understanding of the unneglectable roles of metal ions in DNA replication and meanwhile provide a new strategy for designing regulation kits for PCR-based biomedical applications.