Influence of Thermal Cyclers on Day-to-Day Reproducibility of Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Fingerprints

The day-to-day reproducibility of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprints was tested using two different thermal cyclers. Ten different oligonucleotide primers were used to obtain patterns of amplified fragments from one DNA sample (Bacillus thuringiensis) isolate. Experiments were repeated under same conditions five times. Results showed that the RAPD fingerprints of each primer in the same time by using different thermal cyclers gave evidence for excellent reproducibility. Among primers used in this study, primers (p2, p3 and p5) gave evidence for good day-to-day reproducibility. However, other primers (p1, p4 and p6-10) revealed that the day-to-day reproducibility was poor and RAPD fingerprint variations (appearance or disappearance of bands) occurred.