ANAEROBE 2024 – Part 1
This week Branchpoint Biosciences is excited to join the Anaerobe Society of America in Ann Arbor, MI for ANAEROBE 2024 where we’ll be highlighting our ever-growing suite of validated, targeted qPCR assays. While anaerobes are some of the most interesting and important players in human health, working with these fascinating microbes can be notoriously difficult, time consuming and expensive. Not only can it require specialized oxygen free facilities, but anaerobes are notoriously slow growing – taking days to reach the densities necessary for identification. Having a targeted and specific qPCR assay can enable microbial monitoring and quantification directly from a sample within hours, even when your target is in low abundance. We have two blog posts this week covering topics we think are particularly relevant to the ANAEROBE 2024 crowd, but not just ANAEROBE participants! So read on!
Today we are demonstrating Branchpoint Biosciences qPCR assays specifically designed for multiplex reactions.
Multiplexing Microbiomes
We’ve already shared how well our validated assays work in singleplex reactions, each consisting of a single forward and reverse primer with a fluorogenic probe. These assays are great when you have a single target and need to quantify it in all of your samples. But what if you care about more than one microbe? The most expensive part of any qPCR reaction is the master mix (which can generally reflect about 75% of cost of a qPCR reaction), and costs can quickly scale when you care about more than one organism. Any chance to return multiple answers from a single reaction saves money (and time!), so we’ve worked hard to develop multiplexed assays compatible with most qPCR platforms to give you more bang (aka bugs) for the buck. Most thermocyclers with the correct filters installed have the ability to screen for multiple different fluorophore colors, such that if you can create qPCR assays that do not interfere with each other, you can screen for multiple targets and reduce the cost per reaction.
Introducing TaxaPlex™
We’re excited to share the third pillar of the Branchpoint software suite – TaxaPlex™ – which identifies qPCR assays that can be multiplexed together.
Below we demonstrate this multiplexing capability for three targets using three different fluorophores. For these three anaerobic target organisms – Bacteroides fragilis, Peptostreptococcus anaerobius, and Fusobacterium nucleatum – our assays have the same sensitivity in a singleplex reaction (red) as they do in multiplex reactions (blue) – detecting a dynamic range of 7 orders of magnitude (<10 copies to >1,000,000) with virtually identical efficiency and coefficients of correlation.
While not every qPCR assay is able to multiplex with every other qPCR assay, we have a proven track record of identifying multiplex-compatible assays among our previously validated assays that help reduce costs. Furthermore, we can always design custom, purpose-built multiplex assays for up to 4 targets in a single reaction. In this way, we can provide flexibility and savings for our customers. Reach out and we’ll let you know which targets you can multiplex together!
