Microbiome
Around 2006 when Roche was introducing the 454 a small lab in Texas studying how to evaluate the different populations of bacteria in farm animals and how they could be used to reduce stress began looking at this new 454 technology.
They did some early tests with a new tagging protocol for primers designed to amplify any bacteria. By putting some “alien DNA” .. no not extraterrestrial DNA but a DNA sequence that was not associated with the target molecule they found a way to mark an individuals bacterial profile so that many different samples could be run at the same time. They managed to get some early tests done through one of the first university labs to have this new 454 technology and found that they could indeed see so many new and different organisms within each sample. A year or so later the industry of the microbiome was born!
Microbiome
In short the term microbiome .. is micro = microorganisms and biome meaning an environmental niche. so a microbiome study would be evaluating which microorganisms live within a specific environmental niche.
The usual steps taken on conducting a microbiome study are:
- determining what the experimental question is
- determining how to answer the experimental question
- Sampling
- Storage and shipment
- DNA extraction
- DNA sequencing
- Analysis of that sequence data through bioinformatics and statistics
Microbiome research has enlightened us on so many factors related to health , human, wild-life, domestic animals, crops, soil, coral, ocean creatures, and so much more
What is your specific experimental question? chances are if it involves a living entity (human, tree, fish, etc.) there is a bacterial community that is associated with this entity that has a dramatic effect on its health and well-being. Thus, understanding how changes in that living entities environment affect the microbiome can help us resolve how to improve the health of that living entity.
EVERYTHING has microorganisms on it
There is a broad range of samples that can be collected for microbiome studies. Some sample types that are commonly studied in microbiome research include:
- Door Handles
- Drinking water
- Fecal samples
- Air samples
- Water samples
- Any part of the body
- Soil samples
- Water samples
- ANY SAMPLE
Take any sample and send it in to www.mrdnalab.com and they can easily analyze the microbiome .