Question

Do you think molecular biology approaches such as polymerase chain reaction could play a role in determining the microbiological quality of water? why?

Answer 1

PCR or polymerase chain reaction is a technique in molecular biology used for amplifying a specific DNA. Different variations of traditional PCR techniques are now extensively used in various fields like forensics, food quality analysis, diagnostics etc. The variant of PCR called quantitative-real time-PCR is used for assessing the microbiological quality of water.

Traditionally, for determining the presence of bacteria in water sample plate count method is used. The disadvantages of plate count method is that the result is highly depends on culture condition, bacterial metabolic states, nutrient conditions etc. Also slight changes in the environment may impair the sensitivity of this method. On the other hand, PCR is used to detect the presence of DNA of the water-borne bacteria in water sample . PCR based method eliminates the disadvantages of the traditional method because PCR is independent of the culture condition, bacterial metabolic states, nutrient conditions etc. Even the presence of minute amount of bacterial DNA can be detected in the water sample using PCR technique and thus it has got high sensitivity, accuracy and precision than other conventional methods. PCR can detect water contamination and it is also used to identify the bacteria. Therefore, PCR based method play an important role in the microbiological water quality assessment.