Free software for primer alignment and design for pcr?

Question

[Platelet Guardian]

Hi,

Sorry for the noobie question. What are the best free software for the above? I have been using https://primer3.ut.ee/

Is there anything better that doesn't need internet connection as sometimes when I am studying I don't have access to the internet.

Thanks

Answer 1

[ATpoint]

Primer3 is pretty much the go-to choice, only "better" option if you PCR from genomic DNA or transcriptome is PrimerBLAST which will use Primer3 for the design and then check the candidate primers for off-targets against the genome or nucleotide collection you choose using BLAST. Primer3 source code is open access and you can run it locally if you have some experience in handling command line tools: https://github.com/primer3-org

[Platelet Guardian]

Thank you for your reply. Also how useful is python and R in this scenario? Are there any packages or scripts that I can use to help me interpret things?