dPCR Working Principle:
Digital PCR overcomes the difficulties of conventional PCR. With dPCR, a sample is partitionedso that individual nucleic acid molecules within the sample are localized and concentrated within many separate regions. The partitioning of the sample allows one to count the molecules by estimating according to Poisson. As a result, each part will contain "0" or "1" molecules, or a negative or positive reaction, respectively. After PCR amplification, nucleic acids may be quantified by counting the regions that contain PCR end-product, positive reactions.
In conventional PCR, starting copy number is proportional to the number of PCR amplification cycles. dPCR, however, is not dependent on the number of amplification cycles to determine the initial sample amount, eliminating the reliance on uncertain exponential data to quantify target nucleic acids and providing absolute quantification.