Traditional, quantitative PCR (qPCR) has been an essential tool in clinical viral diagnostics but is also accompanied by its fair share of limitations. This is especially telling when dealing with lower abundance targets or template copy numbers where qPCR results often vary alongside the use of a standard curve for quantification and a subjective signal threshold.
This set the stage for the development of digital PCR (dPCR) in the late 90s and transformed the technique from its analog origins to a digital platform. dPCR offered absolute and variation-less quantification of nucleic acids, but unfortunately, was also limited by its unsuitability for large amplicons, low extraction throughput, and a high risk for sample contamination.
Droplet Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction (ddPCR), introduced in 2011, has emerged as a transformative technique that provides cutting-edge precision, accuracy, and sensitivity for viral titer quantification. Based on water-oil emulsion droplet technology, ddPCR involves partitioning a sample into thousands of droplets. Each droplet would contain a single molecule and would undergo PCR separately, enabling researchers to achieve never-before-seen precision in nucleic acid quantification.
ddPCR elevated the PCR technique from its exponential and analog origins to a statistical and scalable technology for practical application. Bio-Rad’s ddPCR systems and software represent a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that enable viral quantification solutions for gene-modified cell therapies, and various other cell and gene therapy-based applications.
In this resource guide, you will learn about:
- Quality control solutions Bio-Rad has to offer for cell and gene therapy
- How to transition your assay from qPCR to ddPCR
- Viral genome quantification for recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) development
