ABSTRACT
PCR is used for synthesizing and amplifying,
in vitro
, specific nucleotide sequences of which only a very small number of copies are present in a given biological sample. It was described and named by Mullis et al. in 1987 (although the general principle had previously been set out by Khorana et al.). Since then, the technique has been considerably improved and has found many new applications. In 1990, in particular, Haase et al. developed an
in situ
PCR technique which combined the advantages and disadvantages of
in situ
hybridization and PCR, using cell suspension, to study the DNA of
Lentivirus
.
This chapter, which is theoretical in orientation, deals first with the fundamental principles of liquid-phase PCR, then sets out the different
