PCR-Based Techniques

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a molecular biology technique that amplifies and quantifies genes, was invented by Kary Mullis in 1983 and patented in 1985 (Saiki et al. 1985). This Nobel Prize-winning technique has revolutionised the detection and analysis of nucleic acids. It is essentially an in vitro enzymatic reaction for amplifying DNA using thermal cycling (Kadri 2019). The procedure involves an initial denaturation step, followed by 30–50 cycles of amplification, and then a final extension step (Kadri 2019).