Question

If you performed a PCR experiment starting with only one copy of double- stranded DNA, approximately how many DNA molecules would be present in the reaction tube after 15 cycles of amplification?

Short answer

Answer: After 15 cycles of PCR amplification, there would be approximately 32,768 DNA molecules present.

Step-by-step solution

Understand the PCR amplification process

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a molecular biology technique used to amplify specific DNA regions. In each cycle of PCR, the number of DNA molecules doubles. Therefore, the number of DNA molecules after a certain number of cycles can be calculated using the formula: N = N₀ * 2^n, where N is the final number of DNA molecules, N₀ is the initial number of DNA molecules, and n is the number of cycles.

Calculate the number of DNA molecules after 15 cycles

In this exercise, we start with one copy of double-stranded DNA (N₀ = 1) and we want to find out how many DNA molecules there are after 15 cycles (n = 15) of amplification. We can use the formula mentioned in Step 1: N = N₀ * 2^n. Plugging in the values, we get: N = 1 * 2^15.

Simplify the expression to find the final number of DNA molecules

Now we just need to evaluate the expression: N = 1 * 2^15 = 2^15. Using a calculator or manually calculating, we get: N = 32,768.

Provide the answer

So, after 15 cycles of PCR amplification starting with only one copy of double-stranded DNA, there would be approximately 32,768 DNA molecules present in the reaction tube.