Short description

The solution of oligonucleotides composed of 20 deoxythymidylic acid residues.

Description

A primer is a strand of short nucleic acid sequences (generally about 10 base pairs) that serves as a starting point for DNA synthesis. It is required for DNA replication because the enzymes that catalyze this process, DNA polymerases, can only add new nucleotides to an existing strand of DNA. The polymerase starts replication at the 3'-end of the primer, and copies the opposite strand