What It's Used For
Microbial content and diversity within collected gut, rectal, vaginal, skin, oral, or soil samples can provide a wealth of clues about human and animal wellness. However, current microbiome collection methods subject the samples to harsh and stressful stabilization techniques such as freezing or harsh organic solvents. Both stabilization approaches have several drawbacks:
- Freezing: Requires well-monitored cold chain storage and transport – Cost associated with cold chain transport – Alters microbial representation from point of collection to processing – Limited to DNA analysis – Thawing sample requires pre-processing which affects DNA quality – Somewhat limits re-culturing of samples, therefore affecting proper microbial diversity modeling
- Organic solvents: Alters microbial representation from point of collection to processing – Limited to DNA and somewhat for RNA analysis – Limited sample shelf life – Re-culturing is not possible, limiting proper microbial diversity modeling
Features
Mawi DNA Technologies iSWAB-Microbiome (with FecesCatcher) is designed specifically for efficient home-based collection of stool samples. The iSWAB-Microbiome (with FecesCatcher) is identical to our original iSWAB-Microbiome product, but each kit contains a FecesCatcher to simplify feces collection and is supplied with 1 swab instead of 2.
iSWAB-Microbiome provides a representative snapshot of the microbial community that remains unchanged from collection to processing of oral, gut/fecal, skin, vaginal, and soil samples. Purified DNA or RNA isolated from collected samples are compatible with qPCR, microarray, and NGS for microbiome research in wellness and forensics.
- Microbial presentation maintained intact and viable from time of collection up to 8 weeks (real time testing ongoing).
Both aerobic and anaerobic bacterial communities stabilized from collection to processing.- Ambient temperature transport and storage with no cold chain involvement
- iSWAB-Microbiome buffer allows selective isolation of bacterial DNA or RNA with minimal or no human genomic DNA contamination.
- No organic hazardous solvent fixatives or detergents.
- The microbial community within the sample will remain in stasis and can only be re-grown if removed from the iSWAB-Microbiome environment and subjected to nutrient media supporting microbial growth.
- Purified bacterial DNA or RNA isolated from collected samples are compatible with qPCR, microarray and NGS based applications.
- Scalable and customizable platform capable of stabilizing up to 20g of fecal or soil material.