The polymerase extends the primers in the 5' to 3' direction. In the fourth cycle, extension of the template through the hairpin region of the.So for a standard PCR you usually have an "extension" step at 72 degrees to speed things up. Figure 26 shows examples of. Is 5 min extension time really necessary for 400bp fragments? If the extension time is too short, there will be insufficient time for complete replication of the target. I've tried lowering the annealing temperature to 50C and increasing the extension time to 1 minute.