多聚合酵素鏈鎖反應為多個引子在同一聚合酵素鏈鎖反應中反應。由於可同時放大多個目標去氧核醣核酸片段，因此可節省實驗的時間與花費。一個成功的反應有賴於引子的設計，但此引子受限於解鏈溫度，嘌呤嘧啶組成比例，長度及與目標序列的互補狀況，因此為一個相當繁雜的任務。設計引子的方法於這幾十年蓬勃發展，但大多數都不支援多聚合酵素鏈鎖反應。系統主要運用遺傳演算法，模擬自然界的演化方式，對既定問題求最佳解。目前的實驗結果顯示，其可很快的找出目標區域的引子，並將其分組，使它們不只是符合引子設計的原則，並可於同一聚合酵素鏈鎖反應中反應。 Multiplex PCR is the term used when more than one pair of primers is used in a polymerase chain reaction. The goal of multiplex PCR is to amplify several segments of target DNA simultaneously and thereby to conserve template DNA, save time, and minimize expense. The success of above-mentioned methods is dependent on primer design. However, this is a tedious task as too many constrains such as melting temperatures, primer length, GC content and complementarity to optimize the PCR product needs to be satisfied. Various kinds of approaches for designing a primer have been proposed in the last few decades, but most of them don’t satisfy the multiplex PCR. The system draws on genetic algorithm which imitates nature’s process of evolution and genetic operations on chromosomes in order to achieve the optimal solutions. Presently experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can find some group of primer pairs that not only obey the design properties but also work at same tube.
