Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction

Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction (digital PCR, DigitalPCR, dPCR, or dePCR) is a refinement of conventional polymerase chain reaction methods that can be used to directly quantify and clonally amplify nucleic acids including DNA, cDNA or RNA. The key difference between dPCR and traditional PCR lies in the method of measuring nucleic acids amounts, with the former being a more precise method than PCR. PCR carries out one reaction per single sample. dPCR also carries out a single reaction within a sample, however the sample is separated into a large number of partitions and the reaction is carried out in each partition individually. This separation allows a more reliable collection and sensitive measurement of nucleic acid amounts. The method has been demonstrated as useful for studying variations in gene sequences - such as copy number variants and point mutations - and it is routinely used for clonal amplification of samples for "next-generation sequencing."

Read more about Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction:  PCR Basics, DPCR Working Principle, Development

Famous quotes containing the words chain and/or reaction:

    How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it? Everything lives, moves, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays, emanating either from myself or from others, cross the limitless chain of created things unimpeded; it is a transparent network that covers the world, and its slender threads communicate themselves by degrees to the planets and stars. Captive now upon earth, I commune with the chorus of the stars who share in my joys and sorrows.
    Gérard De Nerval (1808–1855)

    Sole and self-commanded works,
    Fears not undermining days,
    Grows by decays,
    And, by the famous might that lurks
    In reaction and recoil,
    Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)