Efficiency of polymerase chain reaction processes: A stochastic model

A stochastic model for the efficiency of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) processes is presented. The model is based on the assumption that the i´th nucleotide incorporation on the DNA template takes tau_i seconds, where tau_i has an exponential distribution with mean 1/lambda_i. In this paper, given lambda_i that can be obtained from the primer-template sequence, temperature profile, enzyme rate, and other assay conditions, we calculate the efficiency of a multi-step PCR process using the distribution of the summation of non-identical exponential distributions.