Starting with a single target, how many copies are produced in a PCR reaction of 30 cycles?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

In a PCR reaction, the amount of target DNA doubles with each cycle. Therefore, after 30 cycles, the amount of target DNA will have been multiplied 2^30 times, which equals 1,073,741,824 copies. However, since there are also two strands of DNA in each copy, the answer is actually 2 x 1,073,741,824, which equals approximately 2 billion copies of the target DNA. Therefore, the best choice would be C, which shows the final number of copies as 2³⁰.

Starting with a Single Target, How Many Copies Are Produced