Assessment of two DNA extraction kits for profiling poultry respiratory microbiota from multiple sample types

PLoS One. 2021 Jan 6;16(1):e0241732. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241732. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Characterization of poultry microbiota is becoming increasingly important due to the growing need for microbiome-based interventions to improve poultry health and production performance. However, the lack of standardized protocols for sampling, sample processing, DNA extraction, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis can hinder data comparison between studies. Here, we investigated how the DNA extraction process affects microbial community compositions and diversity metrics in different chicken respiratory sample types including choanal and tracheal swabs, nasal cavity and tracheal washes, and lower respiratory lavage. We did a side-by-side comparison of the performances of Qiagen DNeasy blood and tissue (BT) and ZymoBIOMICS DNA Miniprep (ZB) kits. In general, samples extracted with the BT kit yielded higher concentrations of total DNA while those extracted with the ZB kit contained higher numbers of bacterial 16S rRNA gene copies per unit volume. Therefore, the samples were normalized to equal amounts of 16S rRNA gene copies prior to sequencing. For each sample type, all predominant bacterial taxa detected in samples extracted with one kit were present in replicate samples extracted with the other kit and did not show significant differences at the class level. However, a few differentially abundant shared taxa were observed at family and genus levels. Furthermore, between-kit differences in alpha and beta diversity metrics at the amplicon sequence variant level were statistically indistinguishable. Therefore, both kits perform similarly in terms of 16S rRNA gene-based poultry microbiome analysis for the sample types analyzed in this study.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Chickens / microbiology*
  • DNA, Bacterial* / chemistry
  • DNA, Bacterial* / genetics
  • DNA, Bacterial* / isolation & purification
  • DNA, Ribosomal* / genetics
  • DNA, Ribosomal* / isolation & purification
  • Microbiota*
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S* / genetics
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S* / isolation & purification
  • Reagent Kits, Diagnostic*
  • Respiratory System / microbiology*

Substances

  • DNA, Bacterial
  • DNA, Ribosomal
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
  • Reagent Kits, Diagnostic

Grants and funding

This project was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grant number 2015-68004-23131 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (to C.-W.L.).