If you've ever been asked to take a PCR test, and didn't have a clue what the lab technician was talking about, then this blog post is for you. In layman's terms, PCR stands for "polymerase chain reaction" and it's a way of looking inside your body to see if there is any virus inside it. A PCR test is one step in the process of trying to diagnose an illness called covid-19.
PCR testing is a common, usually painless procedure that can be performed in a doctor's office or a lab. The doctor will take a swab of mucus from your nostril and place it in an open-ended test tube. You then seal the tube and give it to someone who knows what they are doing (usually another person in the same room). They will then examine the sample for signs of infection by looking at it under a microscope and checking for particular DNA sequences known to indicate infection with HSV1 or HSV2.
A person who has taken a swab puts it into a machine which looks for any viruses that you might have. The machine is looking for DNA, which is from the virus.
DNA is what makes up every living thing on earth (including you!) and can be found in every cell of your body. It's like you have these little pieces of information stored inside each cell, telling your cells how to work and what they need to do. You get these little pieces of information from two people: one from mommy and one from daddy when they make love! These little pieces are called genes.*They look like this*
The test looks for bits of DNA from the virus that causes Covid-19. The test is looking for DNA from the virus, not the virus itself.
Imagine that you have a virus and it's making copies of itself. Each time it copies itself, there is a chance that one of those copies will be defective and not work properly. This means that when the virus makes more copies of itself, some of them won't work properly.
When we say "work properly," we mean they won't make your body sick or give you any symptoms. Remember: viruses are living things! They have DNA just like humans do. The difference between human beings and viruses is that our DNA stays put inside our cells (which is why we're not constantly getting sick), but viruses need to be able to move around to find new bacteria or plants for food (or people if they're really hungry). So their DNA needs to leave the cell in order for them to infect other living things!
In order to figure out whether you have a certain disease, the doctor will take a sample of your blood and send it to a lab.
The technicians will then use an instrument called a PCR machine (short for polymerase chain reaction) to make copies of any pieces of DNA that may be abnormal in your sample. When they do this, they are essentially making more copies than there were before so that it's easier for them to count how many copies there are.
Those pieces of DNA are then counted. If there aren't any extra copies compared to what is normal for healthy people, then you won't have the disease! The results come back as either positive or negative—and if you ever want another test done at another time because something makes you suspicious about your results, doctors can easily run additional tests with newer versions of this method until they find out exactly what's going on with your health issues!
In layman's terms, PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an extremely powerful technique used in biology to amplify DNA segments by a factor of 10 million or more. PCR uses two short strands of DNA called primers and a thermostable enzyme called Taq Polymerase which replicates the DNA between these primers many times over, resulting in large amounts of specific target sequences in a sample
The process begins by heating up the sample so that it melts apart into single strands. These strands act as templates for copying by Taq polymerase using your sequence-specific primers as guides.
This process is repeated many times until there are enough copies for detection or for further use such as cloning or sequencing
When you are diagnosed with HIV, your doctor will order a test to see how much virus is inside your body. This test is called Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (QPCR). The amount or level of virus inside your body can be determined by looking at how many copies are made.
The number of copies is determined by how much virus there is in your body. The more copies there are, the worse it is for you and the higher chance that you will get sick from it.
A PCR test involves taking a sample from inside your nose and sending it off to a lab where they look for evidence of Covid-19.
The sample is taken using a swab, which is like a cotton bud but with more bristles on it. The swab goes in your nose and rubs against the skin there, collecting some cells that may contain the virus. You then send this sample off to the lab where scientists will do an analysis on it.
They look at the DNA in these cells, searching for fragments of genetic material that match up with what's found in Covid-19 infections (and not other viruses). If they find any matching fragments then they'll know you've got Covid-19 and will give you back either a positive or negative result depending on whether those fragments were present or not.
PCR is a very important part of our healthcare system and it helps doctors treat patients. It is also used as a diagnostic tool in many other areas such as forensics and paternity testing. A PCR test result can tell us whether or not an individual has been infected with a particular virus or bacteria, and even predict how severe the infection may be if left untreated!