title: Online exercise for the design and simulation of PCR and PCR-RFLP experiments.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism of PCR products (PCR-RFLP) are extensively used molecular biology techniques. An exercise for the design and simulation of PCR and PCR-RFLP experiments will be a useful educational tool.
  
  
  RESULTS
  An online PCR and PCR-RFLP exercise has been create that requires users to find the target genes, compare them, design primers, search for restriction endonucleases, and finally to simulate the experiment. Each user of the service is randomly assigned a gene from Escherichia coli; to complete the exercise, users must design an experiment capable of distinguishing among E. coli strains. By applying the experimental procedure to all completely sequenced E. coli, a basic understanding of strain comparison and clustering can also be acquired. Comparison of results obtained in different experiments is also very instructive.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The exercise is freely available at http://insilico.ehu.es/edu.
authors: Rosario María
authors: RM
authors: San Millán
authors: Ilargi
authors: I
authors: Martínez-Ballesteros
authors: Aitor
authors: A
authors: Rementeria
authors: Javier
authors: J
authors: Garaizar
authors: Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Paseo de la Universidad 7, 01006, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Joseba.bikandi@ehu.es.
authors: Joseba
authors: J
authors: Bikandi
mesh_terms: D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length