text: user1771: In Shapiro et al., when discussing about loss of molecules as source of error in single-cell sequencing, it is written that:
  
  Another source of error is losses, which can be severe. The detection limit of published protocols is $5$–$10$ molecules of mRNA.
  
  I used to think that the detection limit of a protocol was the average maximum number of molecules detected across cells in a scRNA-seq experiment. However, by working on the dataset provided by The Tabula Muris Consortium et al. (pp) I noticed that RNA raw counts often spikes to more than 10 molecules.
  What is the actual meaning of detection limit of a protocol in scRNA-seq?
  
  user77: The detection limit refers to the ability to detect a given gene/transcript. In this case, they're saying that a given transcript requires 5-10 copies in order to be likely detected (in other words, the loss rate is 80-90%, which is directly related to a previous question of yours).
  
original_text: 1771: <p>In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg3542" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Shapiro et al.</a>, when discussing about loss of molecules as source of error in single-cell sequencing, it is written that:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Another source of error is losses, which can be severe. The detection limit of published protocols is $5$–$10$ molecules of mRNA.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I used to think that the detection limit of a protocol was the average maximum number of molecules detected across cells in a scRNA-seq experiment. However, by working on the dataset provided by <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/12/20/237446" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Tabula Muris Consortium et al. (pp)</a> I noticed that RNA raw counts often spikes to more than 10 molecules.</p>
  
  <p>What is the actual meaning of detection limit of a protocol in scRNA-seq?</p>
   77: <p>The detection limit refers to the ability to detect a given gene/transcript. In this case, they're saying that a given transcript requires 5-10 copies in order to be likely detected (in other words, the loss rate is 80-90%, which is directly related to <a href="https://bioinformatics.stackexchange.com/questions/3126/how-to-compute-the-chance-of-failing-to-detect-a-gene-given-the-detection-limit">a previous question of yours</a>).</p>
  