NEAR is isothermal, replicating DNA at a constant temperature using a polymerase (and nicking enzyme) to exponentially amplify the DNA at a temperature range of 55 °C to 59 °C.
One disadvantage of PCR is that it consumes time uncoiling the double-stranded DNA with heat into single strands (a process called denaturation) .
[1][circular reference] Potential advantages of NEAR over PCR are increased speed and lower energy requirements, characteristics that are shared with other isothermal amplification schemes.
[2] A major disadvantage of NEAR relative to PCR is that production of nonspecific amplification products is a common issue with isothermal amplification reactions.
[3] The NEAR reaction uses naturally occurring or engineered endonucleases that introduce a strand break on only one strand of a double-stranded DNA cleavage site.