Karnage Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 hey guys, im still a bit confused over the purpose of positive and negative controls. Can sum1 explain me the uses and give good examples so that I may understand. It would be greatly appreciated thnx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecoli Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 you need a control in order to make sure the results of you experiments are due to the variables you are testing. That being said... a positive control is when you test your experiment against something where you know what the effects will be. a negative control would be when you test the experiment with something you know will have no effect. For example, I was doing a genetics project where I was carrying out PCR, a process that amplifies desired genes. Primers are the molecules that can choose the section of DNA you want to amplify. I designed primers for my desired gene, but I still had to test them, to make sure they worked. In this experiment, I replaced the DNA with water to use a negative control. And I used a set of standard primers that I knew amplified other genes for my positve control. You get it know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Connor Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 wow, I was gonna use the exact same example. Weird Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karnage Posted February 13, 2006 Author Share Posted February 13, 2006 K i got it...i used positive and negative controls for my PCR too, along with my reverse transcription before that. I just wanted to know what they were and how they functioned so that I could get a better understanding. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karnage Posted February 13, 2006 Author Share Posted February 13, 2006 And by the way, of course the standard primers will most like be beta-actin, which most scientists use for their positive controls for PCR. I dunno if you use beta actin in yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecoli Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 I used 16s primers, actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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