The Role of MgCl 2 in PCR reaction is to enhance the DNA amplification by boosting the activity of Taq DNA polymerase.

The polymerase chain reaction is one of the important experimental procedure in downstream genomic and genetic research. It generates millions of amplicon for the gene of our interest.

The principle of PCR is based on the amplification through temperature variation. Taq DNA polymerase, dNTPs, primers and PCR buffer are used as raw material for amplifying the gene of interest.

Once the Primers bind to its complementary sequence, the Taq DNA polymerase add dNTPs to the growing DNA strand, the entire process is governed by three different steps of temperature: Denaturation at 94°C (denature DNA), Annealing at 55°C to 65°C (primer binding) and Extension at 72°C ( elongation of DNA ).

PCR buffer is one of the important ingredients of a PCR reaction. Though the composition of PCR buffer varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, some of the basic chemicals remain same in all buffers.

Read Further on PCR ingredients,

One of the important and most common ingredients in the PCR buffer is MgCl 2 . In this article, we will discuss how MgCl 2 increases the activity of Taq Polymerase and how it increases the yield of the reaction.

MgCl 2 is a major component of lysis buffer in DNA extraction. Here MgCl 2 breaks the cell membrane with the help of Tris. After the lysis of the cell membrane, DNase can easily attack DNA and can break it. MgCl 2 binds with DNA and protect it from DNase activity.

However, in PCR reaction it performs a totally different function. Most of the enzymes require a cofactor for performing the catalytic reaction. Mostly the cofactor is the metal ion. Mg+ is the main cofactor for Taq DNA polymerase.

Role of MgCl 2 in PCR reaction:

Mg+ ions bind to the catalytic site of the enzyme and increase its power to perform the reaction. Hence the ability of Taq DNA polymerase of adding dNTPs on growing DNA strand is increased.

It is very important to mention polymerase as Taq DNA polymerase because DNA polymerase used in PCR reaction is not the same as used during replication.

Taq DNA polymerase is isolated from a bacteria called as thermophillus acquaticus and it can work even at a higher temperature which is not possible by our normal DNA polymerase.

Read more on DNA polymerase: Multifunctional DNA Polymerase: An Overview.

Additionally, MgCl 2 increases the Tm of reaction. The Mg 2 + ions of MgCl 2 bind to the PO 3 – of DNA backbone temporarily and protects the negatively charged phosphate of DNA backbone by decreasing electrostatic repulsion between DNA strands.

The electrostatic repulsion between two DNA strands hinders the binding of primer to its specific location. Here the addition of MgCl 2 helps in a proper binding of primer to its complementary sequence.

Read the article: Role of alcohol in DNA precipitation.

So far MgCl 2 involves into two important activity of PCR reaction: increasing Taq polymerase activity by working as a cofactor and helps primers to bind at a specific location.

“Too much MgCl2 facilitate non-specific binding of primer with template DNA which results in non-specific DNA bands in agarose gel electrophoresis.”

The standard PCR buffer contains MgCl 2 which is sufficient for a normal PCR reaction. However, in some conditions (high GC content of the template, inappropriate forward and reverse primer and for other PCR modifications) more amount of MgCl 2 is required.

During the PCR reaction, deoxynucleotide triphosphates convert into deoxynucleotide monophosphate to form a phosphodiester bond between 3’-OH and 5’-P of the adjacent nucleotide.

Here Mg 2 + ion binds to the alpha phosphate of dNTPs which helps in removal of beta and gamma phosphate from dNTPs (allows only alpha phosphate to form a phosphodiester bond with 3’-OH of the adjacent dNTP).

Generally, 1mM to 5mM concentration can be used for PCR reaction but the standard concentration is 2mM which will give the best result.

Concentration more than 2mM will result in non-specific binding. As the concentration of MgCl 2 increases, the chance of non-specific binding will increase.

Higher the concentration of MgCl 2 , more DNA bands will be observed during agarose gel electrophoresis because primers can bind other than its complementary sequences and amplifies more fragments.

We have covered an entire series of articles on agarose gel electrophoresis read it here,

Let us understand how MgCl 2 is working:

Suppose we running an experiment with a standard PCR protocol having six different conditions.

A standard protocol without adding PCR buffer. Addition of PCR buffer Addition of 2mM MgCl 2 in the reaction Addition of 3mM MgCl 2 in the reaction Addition of 4mM MgCl 2 in the reaction Addition of 5mM MgCl 2 in the reaction

We prepared all 6 tubes with one negative control. For positive control, we added a primer which will amplify 800bp fragment in each tube.

Samples are loaded into the agarose gel with a 1000bp DNA ladder and the loading pattern is as listed below,

DNA ladder PCR reaction without Buffer PCR reaction with buffer PCR reaction with 2mM MgCl 2 PCR reaction with 3mM MgCl 2 PCR reaction with 4mM MgCl 2 PCR reaction with 5mM MgCl 2 Negative control

The results indicate that the fragment of our interest (400bp fragment) is amplified very less without a PCR buffer but it gives the best result after addition of 2mM MgCl 2 along with PCR buffer ( lane 4).

As the concentration of MgCl 2 increases non-specific binding results in more than one bands which indicates that as the concentration of MgCl 2 increase the primer binding specificity is decreased.

Conclusively, if you want to modify your PCR protocol, an addition of the appropriate amount of MgCl 2 can decrease the annealing temperature of a primer. You can run more than two protocol at a single temperature (However, the quality of the result may decrease).

Final words:

An appropriate amount of MgCl 2 increases the specificity of the PCR reaction but more amount of MgCl 2 results in nonspecific binding, decreasing the fidelity and yield of the reaction.

The role ofMgCl 2 in PCR reaction is to boost the activity of Taq DNA polymerase but at higher concentration of MgCl 2 polymerase incorporates non-specific dNTPs. It can also induce primer-dimer formation.

Read the article: organelle DNA

Article written by: Tushar Chauhan

Article reviewed by: Ravi Parmar