NEET2026BiologyChapterActual
Given below are two statements: one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R). Assertion (A): The thermostable enzyme Taq polymerase remains active during the high-temperature denaturation step of PCR. Reason (R): The separated bands of DNA are cut out from the agarose gel and extracted from the gel piece by a process known as elution. In the light of the above statements, choose the correc
Options
- ABoth (A) and (R) are correct and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- BBoth (A) and (R) are correct but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- C(A) is correct but (R) is not correct
- D(A) is not correct but (R) is correct
Correct answer
B. Both (A) and (R) are correct but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
Step-by-step solution
Assertion (A) is correct because Taq polymerase is a thermostable DNA polymerase isolated from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus. It remains active during the high-temperature denaturation step of PCR. Reason (R) is also correct because the process of cutting out separated bands of DNA from the agarose gel and extracting them from the gel piece is known as elution. However, Reason (R) is completely unrelated to Assertion (A) and does not explain why Taq polymerase remains active at high temperatures. The