A comparative study of most probable number (MPN)-PCR vs. real-time-PCR for the measurement of abundance and assessment of diversity of alkB homologous genes in soil

The utilization of quantitative PCR (qPCR) approaches such as MPN-qPCR and real-time-qPCR for in situ assessment of functional genes yields substantial quantitative and qualitative differences. We show this by targeting the alkB gene related to biodegradation of aliphatic alkanes in a set of environmental samples with differing hydrocarbon content.