Question

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using primers of short and long length?

Answer 1

Answer:

Mispairing of primer to site other than target site.

2) Forward primer might anneal to the strand of reverse primer, if more than 4-5 base are exactly same in the sequence forming primer dimer.

(It is therefore advised to avoid repetitive long repeats of bases while designing primer)

3) Primer might also bend and pair with the bases in the same strand forming hairpin loop structure.

Answer 2

The short primers shows better combining nature, whereas the long primers show specific nature when it comes to binding of enzymes to the primers.

Explanation:

The length of the primer plays very important role during the process of replication of DNA. The short length primers bind more efficiently to the targeted DNA, but lacks specificity.

Whereas the long length primers shows greater specificity when it comes to binding of enzymes to the primers or differentiating the process of DNA replication between close species.