This workshop concluded on September 26, 2023. Workshop materials are available here: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/ncbi/workshops/2023-09_Primer-BLAST/workshop-details.html

Biological researchers often design specific PCR primers to amplify a single genomic or mRNA template or a set of closely related templates. In addition, PCR amplification with specially designed primers is sometimes used to identify an organism or group of organisms based on targeted RNA or genomic DNA amplification of an isolate. NCBI’s Primer-BLAST combines the primer design features of the popular Primer3 package with a specificity check that uses nucleotide BLAST to search for target and non-target matches in a background database. Primer-BLAST primers are suitable for use in all PCR based molecular biology protocols including target identification / verification, cloning, variant analysis, and gene expression.

This workshop is designed for people already familiar with Web BLAST and is focused specifically on how to use Primer-BLAST.

In this workshop, you will learn to:

• Design primers specific for mRNA (cDNA) templates that will not cross amplify genomic DNA.
• Design primers for specific genomic templates such as an exon of a gene.
• Identify potential products for a pair of primers.
• Interpret primer alignments on intended and off-target matches to pick the best primers.
• Choose the best background BLAST database to check primer specificity or identify targets.
• Display Primer-BLAST results in the context of the template or genome using graphical displays

If you would like to learn more about Web BLAST, please check out the materials from previous workshops:

• “How BLAST Works & Using Web BLAST Effectively“
• “Exploring Evolutionary Relationships With BLAST“