Uncertainty estimation for quantitative agarose gel electrophoresis of nucleic acids

Sensors. 2023. Vol. 23. No. 4. Article 1999.

Konstantin Semenov, Taraskin A., Yurchenko A., Baranovskaya I., Purvinsh L., Gyulikhandanova N., Vasin A.

This paper considers the evaluation of uncertainty of quantitative gel electrophoresis. To date, such uncertainty estimation presented in the literature are based on the multiple measurements performed for assessing the intra- and interlaboratory reproducibility using standard samples. This paper shows how to estimate the uncertainty in cases where we cannot study scattering components of the results. The first point is dedicated to a case where we have standard samples (the direct expressions are shown). The second point considers the situation when standard samples are absent (the algorithm for estimating the lower bound for uncertainty is discussed). The role of the data processing algorithm is demonstrated.

Keywords: nucleic acids, quantitative gel electrophoresis, electrophoretic separation, metrological analysis, uncertainty propagation, inaccurate data processing