ReviewToxins2016
Is qPCR a Reliable Indicator of Cyanotoxin Risk in Freshwater?
Review in Toxins, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Article
- Diel and spatial variability in cyanobacterial composition, gene abundance, and toxin concentration: a pilot study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- CladoceranToxins · 2025Article
- Airborne Cyanobacterial Toxins and Their Links to Neurodegenerative Diseases.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Intraspecific divergence withinProceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Sea cucumber grazing linked to enrichment of anaerobic microbial metabolisms in coral reef sediments.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Early Detection Methods for Toxic Cyanobacteria Blooms.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Article
- Quantitative relationships among high-throughput sequencing, cyanobacteria toxigenic genotype abundance and microcystin occurrence in bathing waters.The Science of the total environment · 2023Article
- A Direct Analysis of β-Toxins · 2023Article
- Using cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton to assess trophic conditions: A qPCR-based, multi-year study in twelve large rivers across the United States.Water research · 2023Article
- Article
- Reporting of Freshwater Cyanobacterial Poisoning in Terrestrial Wildlife: A Systematic Map.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Review
- Cyanotoxin-encoding genes as powerful predictors of cyanotoxin production during harmful cyanobacterial blooms in an inland freshwater lake: Evaluating a novel early-warning system.The Science of the total environment · 2022Article
- A Summer of Cyanobacterial Blooms in Belgian Waterbodies: Microcystin Quantification and Molecular Characterizations.Toxins · 2022Article
- Article
- Evaluation of a satellite-based cyanobacteria bloom detection algorithm using field-measured microcystin data.The Science of the total environment · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The wide distribution of cyanobacteria in aquatic environments leads to the risk of water contamination by cyanotoxins, which generate environmental and public health issues. Measurements of cell densities or pigment contents allow both the early detection of cellular growth and bloom monitoring, but these methods are not sufficiently accurate to predict actual cyanobacterial risk. To quantify cyanotoxins, analytical methods are considered the gold standards, but they are laborious, expensive, time-consuming and available in a limited number of laboratories. In cyanobacterial species with toxic potential, cyanotoxin production is restricted to some strains, and blooms can contain varying proportions of both toxic and non-toxic cells, which are morphologically indistinguishable. The sequencing of cyanobacterial genomes led to the description of gene clusters responsible for cyanotoxin production, which paved the way for the use of these genes as targets for PCR and then quantitative PCR (qPCR). Thus, the quantification of cyanotoxin genes appeared as a new method for estimating the potential toxicity of blooms. This raises a question concerning whether qPCR-based methods would be a reliable indicator of toxin concentration in the environment. Here, we review studies that report the parallel detection of microcystin genes and microcystin concentrations in natural populations and also a smaller number of studies dedicated to cylindrospermopsin and saxitoxin. We discuss the possible issues associated with the contradictory findings reported to date, present methodological limitations and consider the use of qPCR as an indicator of cyanotoxin risk.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.