Correcting for Microbial Blooms in Fecal Samples during Room-Temperature Shipping

• DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00199-16
• Publication Date: 2017-03-08T01:30:26Z
• Authors: Amnon Amir; Daniel McDonald; Jose A. Navas-Molina; Justine Debelius; James T. Morton; Embriette Hyde; Adam Robbins-Pianka; Rob Knight
• Keywords: Citizen Science

In many microbiome studies, the necessity to store samples at room temperature (i.e., remote fieldwork) and ability ship without hazardous materials that require special handling training, such as ethanol citizen science efforts), is paramount. However, although room-temperature storage for a few days has been shown not obscure physiologically relevant differences between comparison groups, there are still changes in specific bacterial taxa, notably, members of class Gammaproteobacteria , can make profiles difficult interpret. Here we identify most problematic taxa show removing sequences from just fast-growing sufficient correct profiles.