Important read: Biotechniques discussion of DNA extraction in microbial studies

Very quick post here.  This is worth a read: BioTechniques – DNA Extraction: Overcoming Obstacles in Microbial Studies.  From their summary:

“What are the most efficient methods to extract microbial DNA that accurately represents the community it is isolated from? Janelle Weaver reports on efforts to identify the best methods for DNA extraction from unknown frontiers in the human body and across the globe.”

It discusses among many things this fascinating paper: Flores GE, Henley JB, Fierer N (2012) A Direct PCR Approach to Accelerate Analyses of Human-Associated Microbial Communities. PLoS ONE 7(9): e44563. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044563

Note – I found out about this on the Twitter

@dr_bik @noahfierer Great paper. We wrote about this paper and similar efforts in a #metagenomics feature this month: bit.ly/RJytjr
— BioTechniques (@MyBioTechniques) October 18, 2012

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On a related note see the paper from my lab on a metagenomic simulation we did a few years ago …

PLOS ONE: Metagenomic Sequencing of an In Vitro-Simulated …

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen