mims-harvard/tooluniverse-primer-design

PCR / qPCR Primer & Oligo Design

Design primers for a target DNA region, get their Tm/Ta, and QC them for the secondary-structure problems that make a PCR fail.

When to use this

• Design a forward/reverse primer pair to amplify a region of a sequence.
• Compute the Tm / annealing temperature of a primer.
• QC an existing primer pair (GC clamp, 3'-end, hairpins, self/cross dimers, Tm match).

Step 1 — Design a primer pair

tu run DNA_primer_design '{"operation":"primer_design",
  "sequence":"ATGGCG...AACGTG",        # full template; must be >= target_end + flanking primer room
  "target_start":40, "target_end":125,
  "tm_target":60, "product_size_min":80, "product_size_max":140}'

Returns forward_primer / reverse_primer (sequence, tm, gc_content, length, position) and product_size. (target_end is clamped to the sequence length, so a too-short template silently shrinks the target — see the constraint quirk below.)

Constraint quirk — read this or it will error. target_start..target_end is the region the amplicon must cover, and the design only succeeds when that span fits inside the product-size window AND good-Tm primers can be placed flanking it. So you need roughly: product_size_min ≤ (target span) ≤ product ≤ product_size_max, with enough flanking sequence on both sides. Common errors and the fix:

• "Target region (N bp) is smaller than product_size_min" → your target is narrower than product_size_min; lower product_size_min or widen the target.
• "product does not cover the target / does not span" → the target is too wide for product_size_max, or runs too close to a sequence end; widen product_size_max or give more flanking sequence.

Step 2 — Get Tm / annealing temperature for specific primers

tu run NEB_Tm_calculate '{"primer_sequence":"CTACCTGAAGAACCTGAG",
  "primer_sequence_2":"CTTGATGTCCTCCAGCAT",
  "polymerase":"Q5", "primer_concentration":500, "monovalent_salt_mm":50}'

NEB returns Tm for each primer and a recommended annealing temperature (Ta) for the chosen polymerase. IDT_analyze_oligo (sequence, salt/Mg/dNTP/oligo concentrations) adds GC%, molecular weight, and hairpin / self-dimer screening. DNA_calculate_gc_content is a quick GC check.

Tm depends on method + conditions. SantaLucia NN (the design tool), NEB, and IDT use different parameter sets, and Tm shifts with monovalent salt, Mg²⁺, and primer/dNTP concentration. Pick one calculator + condition set and use it for the whole experiment; don't compare a SantaLucia Tm to an IDT Tm. Always state the conditions.

Step 3 — Primer design rules (what "good" looks like)

| Property | Target | Why | |---|---|---| | Length | 18–24 nt | long enough for specificity, short enough for efficient annealing | | Tm | 58–62 °C | works with standard cycling; keep the pair within ~2–3 °C of each other | | ΔTm (forward vs reverse) | < 3 °C (≤5 absolute max) | mismatched Tm → one primer anneals poorly | | GC content | 40–60 % | balanced stability | | GC clamp | 1–2 G/C in the last 3 nt of the 3′ end | stabilizes 3′ priming; >3 G/C risks mispriming | | 3′ end | avoid 3′ complementarity within a pair and within a primer | prevents primer-dimers | | Runs / repeats | avoid ≥4 identical bases in a row and di-nucleotide repeats | reduce slippage / mispriming | | Annealing temp (Ta) | ~ Tm − 3 to −5 °C (use the polymerase's calculator) | specificity vs yield | | Amplicon (qPCR) | 70–150 bp | efficient amplification |

scripts/primer_qc.py checks a primer pair against these rules (GC clamp, 3′ self/cross-complementarity, runs, GC%, length, Wallace/NN Tm, Tm match) and flags problems — use it to QC primers from any source.

Step 4 — Specificity (the tools do NOT do this)

Tm and structure are necessary but not sufficient. A primer can be thermodynamically perfect and still amplify the wrong locus. These tools do not check genome specificity — always BLAST each primer (or use Primer-BLAST) against the target genome and confirm a single intended product before ordering. State this in any recommendation.

Step 5 — Common gotchas

• Forgetting specificity (Step 4) — the #1 cause of a "well-designed" primer failing.
• Mismatched pair Tm — design tries to match, but a hand-picked pair often isn't; check ΔTm.
• 3′ primer-dimers — 3′ complementarity between forward and reverse is the classic dimer; IDT_analyze_oligo / the QC script flag it.
• Tm method/condition mixing (Step 2).
• Secondary structure in the template (GC-rich/hairpin regions) can block priming even with good primers — consider additives or moving the target.

Honest limitations

• Thermodynamic Tm/structure prediction ≠ empirical performance; validate by gradient PCR.
• No genome-specificity check (Step 4) and no SNP-masking — handle those separately.

Related skills

• tooluniverse-sequence-analysis — upstream sequence handling (FASTQ, alignment, coverage).
• tooluniverse-enzyme-kinetics / tooluniverse-dose-response — other quantitative assay analyses.