Patent ID: 8346485
Filing Date: 2013-01-01
Classification: C12Q,G16B

Abstract:
1. A method of estimating the initial amount of a target nucleic acid in a sample prior to nucleic acid amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), said method comprising: i) performing PCR on said sample; ii) obtaining signal intensity data from the performed PCR across a range of PCR cycles; iii) modeling the signal intensity data with a phenomenological model and a chemical model, thereby estimating the initial amount of target nucleic acid in the sample; and iv) outputting the estimate of the initial amount of target nucleic acid in the sample to a user or computer readable format; wherein said chemical model is selected from the group consisting of: a) P and P and C) P wherein in all of the above formulae: E is the amplification efficiency, p=K q=K [p] [q] [s] denotes the equilibrium concentration of single stranded nucleic acid, [p] denotes the equilibrium concentration of primer, [q] denotes the equilibrium concentration of polymerase, [h] denotes the equilibrium concentration of primer-template duplex, with subscripts on h indicating the number of nucleotides extending the primer and no subscripts indicating a fully extended primer, [r] denotes the equilibrium concentration of reaction complex, with subscripts on r indicating the number of nucleotides extending the primer and no subscripts indicating a fully extended primer, [s*] denotes the equilibrium concentration of single stranded nucleic acid complementary to s, and [d] denotes the equilibrium concentration of double-stranded nucleic acid.