Stringency

Reaction conditions--notably temperature, salt, and pH--that dictate the annealing of single-stranded DNA/DNA, DNA/RNA, and RNA/RNA hybrids. At high stringency, duplexes form only between strands with perfect one-to-one complementarity; lower stringency allows annealing between strands with some degree of mismatch between bases.

Reaction conditions (notably temperature, salt concentration and pH) that affect the annealing process of single-stranded DNA or RNA to make double-stranded DNA or RNA, or DNA /RNA hybrids. At high stringency, duplexes form only between strands with perfect complementarity; lower stringency allows the annealing of strands with some degree of mismatch.