| abstract |
A method of synthesising nucleic acid by a polymerase chain reaction carried out on a series of overlapping primers which span the entire length of the nucleic acid to be synthesised, comprising two 5'-end outermost primers and inner primers therebetween, each of the outermost primers being present initially in a sufficient excess over each of the inner primers to select for chain-extension of the outermost primers and their chain-extension products, over inner primers and their chain-extension products, characterised in that: at least 6 primers are used; and the reaction is carried out continuously, without any intermediate step of separating nucleic acid molecules of shorter length than required for the total synthesis by PCR of substantially the full length nucleic acid. |