Definition of Annealing

Annealing is a process that involves the heating and subsequent cooling of the two single-stranded nucleotides which are complementary to each other. The heat helps in breaking the hydrogen bonds that stabilize the structure of the nucleic acid. On the other hand, cooling plays its role in forming the new bonds between the sequences. Consequently, a double-stranded nucleotide is formed.

The process of annealing can be used in terms of DNA as well as RNA. The efficiency of annealing is enhanced only when the temperature is decreased very slowly after the process of denaturation.