Patterns of cross-contamination in a multispecies population genomic project: detection, quantification, impact, and solutions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Contamination is a well-known but often neglected problem in molecular biology. Here, we investigated the prevalence of cross-contamination among 446 samples from 116 distinct species of animals, which were processed in the same laboratory and subjected to subcontracted transcriptome sequencing.

Results

Using cytochrome oxidase 1 as a barcode, we identified a minimum of 782 events of between-species contamination, with approximately 80% of our samples being affected. An analysis of laboratory metadata revealed a strong effect of the sequencing center: nearly all the detected events of between-species contamination involved species that were sent the same day to the same company. We introduce new methods to address the amount of within-species, between-individual c

SUBMITTER: Ballenghien M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5370491 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature