Book excerpt: Whereas most books on DNA amplification focus on PCR-based technologies, this volume presents a wider range of methods to amplify DNA with an emphasis on their diverse applications. The book covers both well-established and newly-developed protocols including ligation-based thermocycling approaches, real-time PCR and other new PCR developments, plus several powerful non-PCR isothermal DNA amplification techniques, for example: real-time strand displacement amplification (SDA), rolling-circle amplification (RCA) and multiple-displacement amplification (MDA). An entire section is devoted to a group of enzymes, both natural and engineered, which are employed for DNA amplification and related purposes. In addition, the use of DNA amplification in the detection of non-DNA analytes is presented.