Comparison of methods for fecal microbiome biospecimen collection

BMC Microbiology

Table 1 DNA purity and 16 s rRNA sequence reads by fecal collection method

Method^a	OD 260/280 (Mean ± SD)^b	Filtered sequence reads (Mean ± SD)^d
Method 1: Card	1.86 ± 0.05	12,448 ± 8,761
Method 2: Room Temperature	1.81 ± 0.07	16,451 ± 12,004
Method 3: RNAlater	1.66 ± 0.14^c	13,393 ± 5,909
Method 4: Frozen	1.80 ± 0.05	14,467 ± 10,030

^a1: fecal occult blood test cards at room temperature for 3 days, 2: Eppendorf tubes at room temperature for 3 days, 3: Eppendorf tubes with RNAlater at room temperature for 3 days or 4: frozen at −80°C for 3 days.
^bAnova was used to test for overall differences across storage methods (p < 0.005).
^cBased on Anova results, we conducted Post Hoc TEST (LSD method) to make multiple comparisons, indicating that Method 3 resulted in lower OD 260/280 ratio (p < 0.05).
^dKruskal-Wallis was used to test for overall differences across storage methods (p = 0.84).

ISSN: 1471-2180