Random variation and concentration effects in PCR

Journal article, 2003

Even though the efficiency of the PCR reaction decreases, analyses are made in terms of Galton-Watson processes, or simple deterministic models with constant replication probability (efficiency).Recently Schnell and Mendoza have suggested that the form of the efficiency can be derived from enzyme kinetics. This results in the sequence of molecules numbers forming a stochastic process with the properties of a branching process with population size dependence, which is supercritical, but has a mean reproductionnumber that approaches one. Such processes display ultimate linear growth, after an initial exponential phase, as is the case in PCR. It is also shown that the resulting stochastic process for a large Michaelis Menten constant behaves like the deterministic sequence x_n arising by iterations of the function f(x) = x+x/(1+x).