Optimizing qPCR for the Quantification of Periodontal Pathogens in a Complex Plaque Biofilm

Table 4: The Coefficient of Variation (CV) from qPCR Runs for Different Primer Sets

	Universal	Aa^{^*}	Pg	Tf	Fn	Pi	Cr	Td
Mean CV	9.25%	7.92%	10.04%	9.00%	10.35%	12.24%	8.70%	7.22%
Median CV	6.94%	6.88%	10.42%	7.72%	6.51%	6.19%	6.27%	4.79%
Correl	-0.1067	0.2178	-0.3243	-0.0846	-0.2952	-0.1470	-0.1651	-0.3712

^* Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Aa); Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg), Tannerella forsythia (Tf); Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn); Prevotella intermedia (Pi); Campylobacter rectus (Cr); Treponema denticola (Td).

Mean denotes mean CV% from 22 samples tested in triplicate for all primers except Aa, which was derived from the 12 samples that contained measureable Aa. Median denotes the median CV% for the same samples. Correl denotes the rank correlation of the CV% with the total number of bacteria (Universal) or the number of the individual species. A minimum correlation coefficient of ±0.4227 is required for a p<0.05 level of significance.