POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION (PCR)

It is used to obtain millions or billions of copies of a DNA fragment in very little time. In order to do so,
it is essential to use a very special DNA polymerase enzyme: Taq polymerase. This enzyme was
taken from a bacterium called Thermus aquaticus that live in thermal waters. What makes Taq
polymerase so special is its property to remain stable and functional at the high temperature needed
to maintain both strands of DNA separated after being denaturalized using temperature around 95ºC.
Here you have, in a general view, the steps involved in the process:

It is a relatively simple and inexpensive tool used every day to diagnose diseases, identify bacteria
and viruses, match criminals to crime scenes, and in many other ways.

USE OF PCR TO DETECT CORONAVIRUS SARS-COV2 (COVID-19)

One example of use for PCR so common these days is for identifying the presence of coronavirus in a
sample taken from the nasopharyngeal cavity of a patient. In this case it is a bit more complex
procedure, called RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction). Because of coronavirus
is an RNA virus, before doing the PCR, the viral RNA needs to be reverse-transcribed into DNA. To
do so, another enzyme called reverse transcriptase is needed. This enzyme is able to make a single
strand of DNA using the viral RNA as a template. Once the DNA is made it can be amplified (what is
getting millions of copies of it) using the PCR, and because a marked probe (a small sequence of
nucleotides complementary to a known sequence nucleotide present in de viral DNA) is added,
fluorescent light in each cycle is released each time the DNA is replicated. Measuring the amount of
fluorescent light released, scientist can even calculate the amount of viral RNA originally present in
the patient sample and therefore the