Logo image
Nuclemeter: A Reaction-Diffusion Based Method for Quantifying Nucleic Acids Undergoing Enzymatic Amplification
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Nuclemeter: A Reaction-Diffusion Based Method for Quantifying Nucleic Acids Undergoing Enzymatic Amplification

Changchun Liu, Mohamed M. Sadik, Michael G. Mauk, Paul H. Edelstein, Frederic D. Bushman, Robert Gross and Haim H. Bau
Scientific reports, v 4(1), pp 7335-7335
05 Dec 2014
PMID: 25477046
url
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep07335View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics
Real-time amplification and quantification of specific nucleic acid sequences plays a major role in medical and biotechnological applications. In the case of infectious diseases, such as HIV, quantification of the pathogen-load in patient specimens is critical to assess disease progression and effectiveness of drug therapy. Typically, nucleic acid quantification requires expensive instruments, such as real-time PCR machines, which are not appropriate for on-site use and for low-resource settings. This paper describes a simple, low-cost, reaction-diffusion based method for end-point quantification of target nucleic acids undergoing enzymatic amplification. The number of target molecules is inferred from the position of the reaction-diffusion front, analogous to reading temperature in a mercury thermometer. The method was tested for HIV viral load monitoring and performed on par with conventional benchtop methods. The proposed method is suitable for nucleic acid quantification at point of care, compatible with multiplexing and high-throughput processing, and can function instrument-free.

Metrics

6 Record Views
19 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Web of Science research areas
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Logo image