Rapid Assessment of PCR Product Quality and Quantity by Capillary Electrophoresis

With the growing applications for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in human identity testing, a need exists for more rapid and automated forms of assessing amplification success. Methods that allow the characterization of a sample without consuming much material are helpful, especially in forensic cases. In addition, information regarding the quality and quantity of PCR product can be valuable in some applications. This chapter will focus on quantitating PCR products using capillary electrophoresis (CE). This CE method has proven effective prior to sequence analysis of polymorphisms in the D-loop region of mitochondrial DNA (1 ).