Pooling of biological replicates - pros and cons

[Manuel_Germany]

Hi Everybody,

I´m quite new to both, this forum and qRT-PCR.
In the course of my Phd-thesis I want to compare the gene expression in different growth stages of soybean.
Therefore I´ll use a time series consisting of 12 different time points. I planed to analyze three plants at each of these points, but in terms of a low budget
I wonder if there are possibilities to save RT- and PCR-reactions.

My idea is to pool the biological replicates of each timepoint.
Is this method suitable or are there (statistical) pitfalls?
Which key data do I have to analyze in order to proove, whether the data is okay?

Thanks in adavance.

[relaxin]

If you want statistical analysis of expression data, you should not pool the three samples and run one qPCR.

If yuo really want to save money, you can run one qPCR for each sample at each time point. Then you can still get a good mean+/- SD value. This assume you are good in pipetting.