Sensitive detection of Porcine circovirus-2 by droplet digital polymerase chain reaction

Abstract

Sensitive detection of Porcine circovirus-2 (PCV-2) is very important for surveillance of postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome. Droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) is novel PCR method that can achieve high precision. Our study aimed to develop a sensitive assay utilizing ddPCR to detect PCV-2. Specificity of the assay was confirmed by the failure of amplification of DNA of other relevant viruses. The detection limit for ddPCR was 25 copies/μL, a 4-fold greater sensitivity than TaqMan real-time PCR. Both methods showed a high degree of linearity (R2 = ~1), although TaqMan real-time PCR showed less sensitivity than ddPCR for clinical detection. Our findings indicate that ddPCR might represent a promising platform for detecting PCV-2 viral loads.