qPCR result of pooled samples - (Sep/20/2013 )

Hi,

Here is my question in one line.

Does pooling samples produced a sum of sample copies or a mean of sample copies or something else?

A sample with 100 copies of something is analysed using real-time PCR workflow and I finally get 100 copies as the answer. Now I take two samples (assume both has 100 copies each) and pool them together and analyse them. Will my result be 100 copies or 200 copies? So I could pool 5 or 10 samples, and would I get mean, sum or something else?

Thanks.

If you pool 2 samples for qPCR and you perform the reaction identical to the unpooled sample, the result would be the average copynumber, not the total. So 100 in your example.