Methylation-based enrichment facilitates low-cost, noninvasive genomic scale sequencing of populations from feces.

ABSTRACT: Obtaining high-quality samples from wild animals is a major obstacle for genomic studies of many taxa, particularly at the population level, as collection methods for such samples are typically invasive. DNA from feces is easy to obtain noninvasively, but is dominated by bacterial and other non-host DNA. The high proportion of non-host DNA drastically reduces the efficiency of high-throughput sequencing for host animal genomics. To address this issue, we developed an inexpensive capture method for enriching host DNA from noninvasive fecal samples. Our method exploits natural differences in CpG-methylation density between vertebrate and bacterial genomes to preferentially bind and isolate host DNA from majority-bacterial samples. We demonstrate that the enrichment is robust, efficient, and

SUBMITTER: Chiou KL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5792461 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature