Misprime

It is also useful when using degenerate primers which may misprime and cause nonspecific products.

As described previously, primers are apt to dimerize or misprime, particularly in the absence of specific target.

Aberrant annealing has also been observed — either due to the use of the incorrect tRNA to misprime reverse transcription (Colicelli and Goff 1986a, b; Wakefield et al. 1995) or due to the priming of cellular mRNAs with short “tRNA-like” primers (Taylor and Cywinski 1984).