The fraction or percentage of guanine and cytosine residues in a nucleic-acid sequence. Composition contributes to duplex stability but does not establish primer specificity.
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GC-content, or guanine-cytosine content, refers to the percentage of nitrogenous bases in a DNA or RNA molecule that are either guanine (G) or cytosine (C). It is calculated using the formula: \[ \text{GC content} = \left( \frac{G + C}{A + T + G + C} \right) \times 100 \] where A is adenine, and T is thymine (in DNA).