NEET Zoology Question (2026) — Solution

Step-by-step solution

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) involves three main steps: 1. Denaturation: The double-stranded DNA is heated to separate it into two single strands. 2. Annealing: The temperature is lowered to allow the oligonucleotide primers to bind (anneal) to their complementary sequences on the single-stranded DNA templates. 3. Extension: The temperature is raised, and Taq DNA polymerase synthesizes the new DNA strand by adding nucleotides to the primers. Therefore, primers bind to the DNA strands during the annealing step. Answer: annealing