5 A PCR primer is 18 bases in length How many times will it

5- A PCR primer is 18 bases in length. How many times will it bind to the human genome? (The size of human genome is 3.3 x 109 bp).

Solution

The PCR primer is 18 bases long. So the total no of combination that the primer can have will 4^18. Since there are 4 base pairs. The length of the human genome is 3.3 * 10⁹ base pairs. So the total number of times the primer will bind to the human genome will be 3.3*10⁹ / 4¹⁸.