Jumping the green wall: The use of PNA‐DNA clamps to enhance microbiome sampling depth in wildlife microbiome research. Issue 20 (24th September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Víquez‐R, Luis; Fleischer, Ramona; Wilhelm, Kerstin; Tschapka, Marco; Sommer, Simone
• Is Part Of: Ecology and evolution. Volume 10:Issue 20(2020)
• Page Start: 11779
• Page End: 11786
• Publication Date: 2020-09-24
• Subjects: 16s -- chloroplast -- mitochondria -- PCR blockers -- PNAs -- wildlife microbiome; Ecology -- Periodicals; Evolution -- Periodicals; 577.05
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.6814
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2045-7758

Abstract

Abstract: As microbiome research moves away from model organisms to wildlife, new challenges for microbiome high‐throughput sequencing arise caused by the variety of wildlife diets. High levels of contamination are commonly observed emanating from the host (mitochondria) or diet (chloroplast). Such high contamination levels affect the overall sequencing depth of wildlife samples thus decreasing statistical power and leading to poor performance in downstream analysis. We developed an amplification protocol utilizing PNA‐DNA clamps to maximize the use of resources and to increase the sampling depth of true microbiome sequences in samples with high levels of plastid contamination. We chose two study organisms, a bat ( Leptonyteris yerbabuenae ) and a bird ( Mimus parvulus ), both relying on heavy plant‐based diets that sometimes lead to traces of plant‐based fecal material producing high contamination signals from chloroplasts and mitochondria. On average, our protocol yielded a 13‐fold increase in bacterial sequence amplification compared with the standard protocol (Earth Microbiome Protocol) used in wildlife research. For both focal species, we were able to increase significantly the percentage of sequences available for downstream analyses after the filtering of plastids and mitochondria. Our study presents the first results obtained by using PNA‐DNA clamps to block the PCR amplification of chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA from the diet in the gut microbiome of wildlife. The method involves a cost‐effective molecular technique instead of the filtering out of unwanted sequencing reads. As 33% and 26% of birds and bats, respectively, have a plant‐based diet, the tool that we present here will optimize the sequencing and analysis of wild microbiomes. Abstract : We develop a new tool to prevent contaminating mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA in wildlife gut microbiome sequencing, yielding on average a 13‐fold increase in usable reads. Our method allows for a more effective use of sequencing resources in wildlife microbiome research.