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How reliable is PCR? A mini review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2025

Helen Konrad  and
Andreas Beyer Open the ORCID record for Andreas Beyer [Opens in a new window]
Helen Konrad
Affiliation:
Institut für Rechtsmedizin, https://ror.org/04mz5ra38 Universitätsklinikum Essen , Essen, Germany
Andreas Beyer*
Affiliation:
Fachbereich 8, https://ror.org/04p7ekn23 Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen , Bocholt, Recklinghausen, Germany
*
Corresponding author: Andreas Beyer; Email: andreas.beyer@w-hs.de
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Abstract

The question of whether PCR is reliable sounds strange at first. However, looking at the scientific literature from the 1950s and 60s, one will find many publications on the physicochemistry of DNA that have been forgotten meanwhile. Quite a few of these studies have shown that DNA is thermolabile, which consequently raises the question of whether this thermolability is relevant in the context of PCR, namely in the denaturation phase. However, it can be shown that this is not the case: losses due to thermal hydrolysis are irrelevant for the performance of contemporary PCR protocols and their specificity as well as for the significance of their results. There is now a huge amount of scientifically verified and published data on technical and molecular aspects of PCR, a small selection of which we quote here. In addition, we present some primary data that also clearly demonstrate the reliability of PCR.

Keywords

DNA analysisPCRpseudoscientific critiquereliability of PCRthermostability of DNA

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Review
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Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics , Volume 58 , 2025 , e15
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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