Abstract: Digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR) is a novel nucleic acid amplification technology that enables absolute quantitative analysis of nucleic acid at the single-molecule level through extreme dilution and Poisson distribution statistics without any need for internal reference genes or standard curves. It has the advantages of high sensitivity, accuracy and tolerance, and has great development potential in the field of food safety detection. This paper introduces the technical principle, advantages and disadvantages, and commercial platforms of dPCR, and summarizes recent progress in the application of dPCR in the fields of foodborne pathogen detection, animal- and plant-derived component detection, genetically modified component detection, and foodborne virus detection and the current status of the standardization of dPCR. The problems existing in this technology and possible future development directions are discussed. We hope that this review can provide ideas for promoting the application of dPCR in food safety detection and formulating a standard for dPCR.

Key words: digital polymerase chain reaction, food safety, standardization