Several species of the genus Alexandrium are associated with the production of Paralytic Shellfish Toxins (PSTs) causing the human illness known as Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) through the consumption of contaminated filter-feeding molluscs. The threat to public health and the severe economic impact on shellfish industries that PST events constitute urge the development of rapid, efficient, and reliable monitoring tools. High-throughput qPCR systems such as the Standard BioTools’ BiomarkHD have the potential to perform up to 9,216 reactions simultaneously, providing significant cost and time advantages. This study investigated the transferability of six previously published qPCR assays to the BiomarkHD real-time HT-qPCR system, for the simultaneous DNA detection of Alexandrium minutum, A. tamarense, A. catenella, A. mediterraneum, A. tamutum, and A. ostenfeldii. Double-stranded synthetic DNA fragments (dsDNA) and environmental samples were used to evaluate the platform performances in terms of efficiency of amplification (E), Limits of Detection (LOD), Limits of Quantification (LOQ), linearity (r2), dynamic range (DR), inhibition control, and taxonomical identification reliability. For dsDNA, BiomarkHD results were overall comparable to conventional qPCR, while on environmental samples the instrument showed better inhibition control. On the side of taxonomical identification, both platforms confirmed Alexandrium minutum as the species present in all the field samples analyzed.
Cucchi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.