Synthetic DNA improves microbial gene quantification
GRADCATCH group improves the time- and cost-efficiency of quantifying microbial marker genes involved in soil carbon or nitrogen cycling.
Quantifying microbial genes is essential for understanding microbial roles in ecosystems, especially in carbon and nitrogen cycling. This study introduces a streamlined method using synthetic oligonucleotides as standards for real-time quantitative PCR, replacing the traditional, labor-intensive plasmid-based approach. By designing synthetic DNA fragments from consensus sequences of microbial genes, the WSL group demonstrated that these standards perform equally well in sensitivity and accuracy across diverse soil samples.
The method simplifies workflows, reduces costs, and enhances reproducibility—making it a valuable tool for microbial ecologists. This innovation supports more efficient and scalable monitoring of microbial communities in environmental research and hence goes beyond the needs of GRADCATCH.
Contact Professor Anders Priemé, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, aprieme@bio.ku.dk for more information.
Link to scientific paper: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1279041