Substrate Nucleotide-Determined Non-Templated Addition of Adenine by Taq DNA Polymerase: Implications for PCR-Based Genotyping and Cloning. (October 1996)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Magnuson, V.L.; Ally, D.S.; Nylund, S.J.; Karanjawala, Z.E.; Rayman, J.B.; Knapp, J.I.; Lowe1, A.L.; Ghosh, S.; Collins, F.S.
• Is Part Of: Biotechniques. Volume 21:Number 4(1996)
• Page Start: 700
• Page End: 709
• Publication Date: 1996-10
• Subjects: Biology, Experimental -- Periodicals; Molecular biology -- Periodicals; Medical technology -- Periodicals; Biology, Experimental; Medical technology; Molecular biology; Clinical Laboratory Techniques -- Periodicals; Research -- Periodicals; Medical Laboratory Science -- Periodicals; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 570
• DOI: 10.2144/96214rr03
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0736-6205

Abstract

The Applied Biosystems PRISM TM fluorescence-based genotyping system as well as the Invitrogen TA Cloning ® vector system are influenced by the tendency of Taq DNA polymerase to add an adenine nucleotide to the 3′ end of PCR products after extension. Incomplete addition of adenine to a majority of PCR product strands creates problems in allele-calling during genotyping and potentially diminishes the cloning efficiency of such products. Experiments reported here show that certain terminal nucleotides can either inhibit or enhance adenine addition by Taq and that PCR primer design can be used to modulate this activity. The methods we propose can substantially improve allele-calling for problematic microsatellite markers when using GENOTYPER TM software.