Photo credit KAUST
FluidPrep™ and AirPrep™ concentration technologies, coupled with advanced sequencing methods, are empowering researchers worldwide in diverse fields of metagenomic research. From climate change impact studies to disease and species monitoring, these technologies suit versatile applications.
Recently, a research expedition led by scientists from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) into the challenging environments of Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea's coral reef and mangrove habitats to assess conservation efforts.
The team used field-deployable concentration, extraction, and sequencing systems that had previously been tested and validated by NASA scientists for monitoring microbes on the International Space Station.
The main finding and success of the field study demonstrated the ability and ease of use of these systems to concentrate, extract, and sequence samples in the field immediately after collection and demonstrated that the speed of sample processing provides more DNA diversity. Typically, samples are put on ice and transported back to a laboratory where they may continue to be stored for later analysis due to tedious and labor-intensive sample preparation required by common methods.
However, it is now evident that DNA starts to immediately diminish, and therefore diversity declines in the stored samples, even when kept refrigerated. The rarer sequences go from detectable to not detectable the longer samples are stored. Results from this field testing reveal invaluable insights into coral reef and mangrove habitats otherwise unknown. A publication is pending.
The Concentrating Pipette was among the systems that made sample handling in the field possible. In this study, the Concentrating Pipette concentrated multiple 1 Liter samples down to approximately 300 microliters in less than 10 minutes each – providing an average 3000 X concentration factor.
