Gene expression and RNA quantification studies have benefited from the increased precision and absolute quantification of dPCR. RNA quantification can be accomplished via RT-PCR, wherein RNA is reverse-transcribed into cDNA in the partitioned reaction itself, and the number of RNA molecules originating from each transcript (or allelic transcript) is quantified via dPCR.
One can often achieve greater sensitivity and precision by using dPCR rather than qPCR to quantify RNA molecules in part because it does not require use of a standard curve for quantification. dPCR is also more resilient to PCR inhibitors for the quantification of RNA than qPCR.
dPCR can detect and quantify more individual target species per detection channel than qPCR by virtue of being able to distinguish targets based on their differential fluorescence amplitude or by the use of distinctive color combinations for their detection. As an example of this, a 2-channel dPCR system has been used to detect in a single well the expression of four different splice variants of human telomerase reverse transcriptase, a protein that is more active in most tumor cells than in healthy cells.