Dehydrogenase activity (DHA) is one of the most frequently used biological parameters of soil quality. Dehydrogenase enzymes are found in all microorganisms, and catalyse hydrogen transfer from organic substrate (i.e. hydrocarbon contaminant) to the inorganic acceptor. Because of ubiquity of dehydrogenases in live cells, measuring DHA provides correlative information about total microbial biomass and oxidative ability in the soil. DHA measurements can also be used to estimate disruption to soil activity by contaminants, and to plan the most efficient bioremediation strategy. High DHA activity is correlated to high rates of biodegradation of hydrocarbons. Novorem can conduct rapid and reliable DHA assays to help you understand the microbiological state of your site.
Community profiling
A snapshot of a community of microbes can be very informative. In the past microbiologists have used 'fingerprinting' methods such as denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to achieve such sna...
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Gene quantification is a well established technology for quantifying the abundance of a specific DNA sequence. Traditional PCR (polymerase chain reaction) simply generates a pool of copies of a DNA s...
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