DMSO to improve PCR specificity reference?

[Roger Don't call me Aman Morton]

Dear PCRists,
I have a vague recollection of a paper suggesting that the addition of
DMSO to PCR reactions can help with the specificity. Does anyone
have the reference for this and/or any experience in using this trick?

---------------------------
Roger Morton
sby...@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl

[Stephen Nurrish]

> Dear PCRists,
> I have a vague recollection of a paper suggesting that the addition of
> DMSO to PCR reactions can help with the specificity. Does anyone
> have the reference for this and/or any experience in using this trick?
>

it is NAR 18 (16) 4953 'A specificity enhancer for polymerase chain
reaction'
by Ted Hung, Ken Hak, and Kenneth Fong.

We've found it gives minimal effects and have always managed to solve our
PCR problems by varying the annealing temperature and/or Mg2+
concentration. Formamide to 2.5% works wonders for those difficult GC rich
regions.

[Viraj Master]

In article <s_nurrish-1...@mac008051.lif.icnet.uk>,
s_nu...@icrf.icnet.uk (Stephen Nurrish) wrote:

Is it true that DMSO addition to a PCR reaction decreases DNA polymerase
fidelity, resulting in quite a few point mutations? I thought I read this
somewhere, but I cannot seem to find the ref.

Viraj

[Dave Harry]

In addition to the NAR paper mentioned earlier, here are some more:

Shen, W.H.; Hohn, B.
1992
DMSO Improves PCR Amplification of DNA with Complex
Secondary Structure
Trends Genet
8
7
227

and

Filichkin, S.A.; Gelvin, S.B.
1992
Effect of Dimethyl Sulfoxide Concentration on
Specificity of Primer Matching in PCR
Biotechniques
12
6
828

Dave Harry