The following sequence: 5\'-GCGGCTTAACATTGAAGTTAACAATATCC-3\' was found from a p
ID: 16712 • Letter: T
Question
The following sequence:5'-GCGGCTTAACATTGAAGTTAACAATATCC-3'
was found from a prehistoric dinosaur. You would like to get more sequence of this DNA to understand what is is that it encodes.
Design a short primer(5 nucleotides) that will be used for your sequencing reaction.
Would a primer of 5'GCCGC-3' work?
Explanation / Answer
I don't think it would work since if I rewrote what you proposed as a primer: 3' - CGCCG-5', this primer would match up with the first 5 bases in the given sequence (complementary matchup, and antiparallel). Recall that polymerase reads in the 5'-->3' direction, so it would read from right to left starting at the 5' end of the primer. It would basically start from the left side of the sequence and read in the left direction, so it won't cover the region of interest for the dinosaur.