The microbiome has become one of the hottest topics in research. It has been linked to a plethora of diseases and conditions, from autoimmune disease to depression and from diabetes to cancer. The question of how the microbiome as whole or particular microbes affect the human body is of increasing importance and shotgun metagenomic sequencing provides in-depth knowledge about this.
A major challenge in human microbiome research is however the presence of human host DNA that “contaminates” samples with low microbial abundance. Especially in clinical samples such as biological fluids, the results of WGS are dominated by the massive amount of human DNA.
To overcome this challenge, a method to remove host DNA and enrich microbial DNA prior to sequencing is essential. Pain Point: Current methods for host DNA depletion and microbial DNA enrichment face several downsides:
The HostZERO™ Microbial DNA kit reduces the amount of host DNA by selectively lysing eukaryotic cells, while keeping microbial cells intact. Thereby it overcomes the challenge of contaminating microbial samples with host DNA by enriching microbial DNA without introducing bias or loss of sample. This effective depletion of host DNA reduces cost and increases sensitivity for shotgun metagenomic sequencing.
Low-biomass microbial samples like saliva, swabs, and body fluids from eukaryotic hosts.
