Highlights from ASM Microbe 2019 in San Francisco, CA

We had a wonderful time exhibiting at this year’s ASM Microbe in San Francisco and want to thank everyone who visited our booth. We enjoyed great discussions and the exchange of experiences regarding a variety of applications of Molzym’s high quality products for the sensitive, culture-independent analysis of microorganisms. This year, applications in the field of NGS analysis of microbial populations were in the focus. Here, Molzym provides solutions for the removal of human DNA from clinical specimens and DNA contamination-free master mixes for amplicon library preparation.

More than 3,300 posters were presented in the exhibit and poster halls, and here are two of our highlights demonstrating the advantages of Molzym’s pathogen DNA enrichment and DNA-free amplification products for deep microbiome/metagenomic analysis:

Dr. Rolf Schwarzer from Labor Berlin - Charité Vivantes (Berlin, Germany) presented his fascinating work on “Depletion of Human DNA and Reduction of Bacterial Contamination towards a Standardized Method for Infection Diagnosis with Next Generation Sequencing (SUNDAY - CIV-169)”. He and his colleagues compared different DNA extraction kits and the impact of host DNA depletion on microbiome analysis. All DNA extraction kits were further analysed with two master mixes for reagent-borne bacterial DNA contaminations. Results demonstrated that DNA extraction and master mix reagents have a huge impact on the contamination signature in sequencing reads. Molzym’s human DNA depletion kit, MolYsis-SelectNA™plus, and 16S master mix, NGSeq 16S V3/V4, were regarded promising standards to increase bacterial reads and reduce DNA contamination.

Abstract: https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7859/presentation/16276

Another study on “Comparison of Host Depletion Methods for Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing in Cerebral Spinal Fluid (FRIDAY - CPHM-935)” was presented by Heather Miller from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD, USA). Five methods for the depletion of human nucleic acids (NA) were compared for their impact on the recovery of microbial reads from low and high human background NA CSF samples that were spiked with bacterial and fungal strains. Results clearly showed that depletion of the NA background improved the read depth of microbial sequences, albeit certain methods also negatively impacted recovery of microbial reads. With up to 99 % human NA depletion, Molzym’s MolYsis™ Basic5 performed best among the methods.

Abstract: https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7859/presentation/15428

Please feel free to contact us for more information on our collection of products that standardise your microbiome analysis approaches to high precision and reproducibility.