Hablützel, P.I.

Vandegehuchte, M.

Open Marine Archive

113 
Poster presentation Competition poster 
mtDNA enrichment from preserved samples for meta-genomic skimming  
Hablützel Pascal and Vandegehuchte Michiel 
Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), InnovOcean site, Wandelaarkaai 7, 8400 Oostende, Belgium 
E-mail: pascal.hablutzel@vliz.be  
 
Genetic assays become increasingly common in biodiversity monitoring programs. An often used 
tool is metabarcoding of multi-species samples. The core of this concept is to amplify (using 
polymerase chain reaction: PCR) and to sequence a short piece of the genome. A common issue 
with this approach is that the primers do not perform equally well in different phylogenetic 
groups, making it difficult to quantify the relative abundance of species in bulk. Sequencing all 
available DNA in a sample without prior PCR would circumvent this problem, but such high-
throughput sequencing can still be expensive. A cost-effective middle-way is to enrich 
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) using differential centrifugation and to sequence meta-
mitogenomes. Successful mtDNA enrichment has been demonstrated on fresh samples, but 
access to such material is often difficult in marine sciences, where samples are collected on 
research vessels, often in remote corners of the world. We therefore tested a protocol that 
starts from frozen samples and samples preserved in EtOH and DESS. Our results show that 
freezing does not substantially impede mtDNA enrichment, making meta-mitogenomics an 
attractive method for marine biodiversity assessment. 
 
Keywords: Biodiversity; Monitoring; Genetics; Molecular ecology; Barcoding 
  


mtDNA enrichment from preserved samples for meta-genomic skimming

http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/324887.pdf

mtDNA enrichment from preserved samples for meta-genomic skimming

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