Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products are currently used as sequencing templates. Residual components of the PCR reaction, especially primers and nucleotides, can interfere with the sequencing reaction and lower the quality of the sequencing ladder. PCR amplicons can be cleaned using solid-phase (column or bead) matrices, alcohol precipitation, or enzymatic digestion with alkaline phosphatase. Alternatively, amplicons can be run on an agarose gel and the bands eluted. The latter method provides not only a clean template but also confi rmation of the product being sequenced. It is especially useful when the PCR reactions are not completely free of mis-primed bands or primer dimers.