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Quantitative nucleic acid amplification by digital PCR for clinical viral diagnostics

  • Kuo Zhang , Guigao Lin and Jinming Li EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: February 4, 2016
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)
From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) Volume 54 Issue 9

Abstract

In the past few years, interest in the development of digital PCR (dPCR) as a direct nucleic acid amplification technique for clinical viral diagnostics has grown. The main advantages of dPCR over qPCR include: quantification of nucleic acid concentrations without a calibration curve, comparable sensitivity, superior quantitative precision, greater resistance to perturbations by inhibitors, and increased robustness to the variability of the target sequence. In this review, we address the application of dPCR to viral nucleic acid quantification in clinical applications and for nucleic acid quantification standardization. Further development is required to overcome the current limitations of dPCR in order to realize its widespread use for viral load measurements in clinical diagnostic applications.

Keywords: digital PCR; nucleic acid; quantification; standardization; virus
Corresponding author: Jinming Li, National Center for Clinical Laboratories, Beijing Hospital, No.1 Dahua Road, Dongdan, Beijing, 100730, P.R. China, Phone: +86-10-58115061, Fax: +86-10-65212064, E-mail:

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: This work was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program) (2011AA02A116) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81201347).

  3. Employment or leadership: None declared.

  4. Honorarium: None declared.

  5. Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.

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Received: 2015-11-10
Accepted: 2015-12-27
Published Online: 2016-2-4
Published in Print: 2016-9-1

©2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2015-1101
Keywords for this article
digital PCR; nucleic acid; quantification; standardization; virus

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorials
  3. The Theranos phenomenon, scientific transparency and freedom of speech
  4. Holotranscobalamin: in the middle of difficultly lies opportunity
  5. Review
  6. Laboratory and clinical risk assessment to treat myelodysplatic syndromes
  7. Mini Review
  8. Quantitative nucleic acid amplification by digital PCR for clinical viral diagnostics
  9. Genetics and Molecular Diagnostics
  10. Hybrid minigene splicing assay verified the pathogenicity of a novel splice site variant in the dystrophin gene of a Chinese patient with typical Duchenne muscular dystrophy phenotype
  11. General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
  12. Prospective validation of an automated chemiluminescence-based assay of renin and aldosterone for the work-up of arterial hypertension
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  15. An International Standard for holotranscobalamin (holoTC): international collaborative study to assign a holoTC value to the International Standard for vitamin B12 and serum folate
  16. A technical and clinical evaluation of a new assay for inhibin A and its use in second trimester Down syndrome screening
  17. Investigation on the ability of first trimester glycodelin and angiopoietin-2 to predict small-for-gestational age pregnancies at delivery
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  25. Cancer Diagnosis
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