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Review
. 2020 Nov 30;9(12):433.
doi: 10.3390/biology9120433.

Digital PCR: What Relevance to Plant Studies?

Caterina Morcia  1 , Roberta Ghizzoni  1 , Chiara Delogu  2 , Lorella Andreani  2 , Paola Carnevali  3 , Valeria Terzi  1
Affiliations
Review

Digital PCR: What Relevance to Plant Studies?

Caterina Morcia et al. Biology (Basel). .

Abstract

Digital PCR (dPCR) is a breakthrough technology that able to provide sensitive and absolute nucleic acid quantification. It is a third-generation technology in the field of nucleic acid amplification. A unique feature of the technique is that of dividing the sample into numerous separate compartments, in each of which an independent amplification reaction takes place. Several instrumental platforms have been developed for this purpose, and different statistical approaches are available for reading the digital output data. The dPCR assays developed so far in the plant science sector were identified in the literature, and the major applications, advantages, disadvantages, and applicative perspectives of the technique are presented and discussed in this review.

Keywords: copy number variation; diagnostics; digital PCR; gene expression; genetic traceability; genetically modified organisms; species.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The three main PCR technologies are reported, and their main features are schematically presented.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The main applications of digital PCR (dPCR) developed so far in the plant science sector are reported and classified into six main categories. The percentage of each category was calculated on the basis of number of recently published peer-reviewed studies. The literature screening was carried out using dPCR and its variants as main key words for an analysis of the recently published literature.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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