Development of a prmA genes quantification technique and assessment of the technique's application potential for oil and gas reservoir exploration

作者：Ning, Zhuo; He, Ze; Zhang, Sheng; Yin, Miying; Liu, Yaci; Zhang, Cuiyun^*

来源：ENERGY EXPLORATION & EXPLOITATION, 2018, 36(5): 1172-1188.

DOI：10.1177/0144598717754100

• Propane monooxygenase A
• propane-oxidizing bacteria
• real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction
• oil and gas field
• reservoir exploration

Propane-oxidizing bacteria in surface soils are often used to indicate the position of oil and gas reservoirs. As a potential replacement for the laborious traditional culture-dependent counting method, we applied real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction detection as a quick and accurate technology for quantification of propane-oxidizing bacteria. The propane monooxygenase gene was set as the target and the assay is based on SYBR Green I dye. The detection range was from 9.75 x 10(8) to 9.75 x 10(1) gene copies/mu l, with the lowest detected concentration of 9.75 copies/mu l. All coefficient of variation values of the threshold cycle in the reproducibility test were better than 1%. The technique showed good sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility. We also quantified the propane-oxidizing bacteria in soils from three vertical 250 cm profiles collected from an oil field, a gas field, and a nonoil gas field using the established technique. The results indicated that the presence of propane monooxygenase A genes in soils can indicate an oil or gas reservoir. Therefore, this technique can satisfy the requirements for microbial exploration of oil and gas.

• 出版日期2018-9
• 单位中国地质科学院水文地质环境地质研究所; 中国地质大学（北京）