Capable of generating more than a billion reactions in a single day, the RainDrop Digital PCR System from RainDance Technologies transforms the performance of molecular assays by enabling digital answers across a number of important applications, including low-frequency tumor allele detection, gene expression, copy number variation and SNP measurement. The instrument establishes new performance standards in sensitivity, multiplexing and absolute quantitation in PCR analysis.

Built on the proprietary RainStorm picodroplet technology, the PCR system generates up to 10 million picoliter-sized droplets per lane. Since each droplet encapsulates a single molecule, researchers can quickly determine the absolute number of droplets containing specific target DNA and compare that to the number of droplets with background wild-type DNA. The system also shifts the current digital PCR (dPCR) paradigm from a single-color-per-marker approach to a two color and varying probe intensity method that is capable of multiplexing up to 10 markers.

In a recent Lab on a Chip paper, scientists from Université de Strasbourg and Université Paris Descartes used the dPCR technology to detect a single mutated copy of KRAS in a background of 200,000 wild-type copies. By processing reactions in millions of picoliter droplets, the platform improved sensitivity by two orders of magnitude compared to existing technologies.