A simple method for testing and controlling inhibition in soil and sediment samples for qPCR
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Updated: Jul 20, 2025
Development and Testing of Species-specific Quantitative PCR Assays for Environmental DNA Applications
Published on: November 5, 2020
Tom Bott1, George Shaw2, Simon Gregory3
1British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK; School of Biosciences, Sutton Bonington, University of Nottingham, Loughborough LE12 5RD, UK.
Abstract:
The presence of polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) inhibitors in many environmental samples can make reliable and repeatable quantitative-polymerase-chain-reaction (qPCR) analysis difficult without sample dilution. To estimate an optimal sample dilution for qPCR and reduce effects of inhibition, a simple test based on multiple dilution series of samples is presented that avoids the use of internal controls and standards reducing complexity and cost.
