Single Fragment or Bulk Soil DNA Metabarcoding: Which is Better for Characterizing Biological Taxa Found in Surface Soils for Sample Separation?

ABSTRACT: In forensic geology casework, sample size typically limits routine characterization of material using bulk approaches. To address this, DNA-based characterization of biological taxa has received attention, as the taxa present can be useful for sample-to-sample comparisons and source attribution. In our initial work, low biodiversity was captured when DNA barcodes were Sanger-sequenced from plant and insect fragments isolated from 10 forensic-type surface soils. Considering some forensic laboratories now have access to massively parallel sequencing platforms, we assessed whether biological taxa present in the same surface soils could be better characterized using DNA metabarcoding. To achieve this, plant and animal barcodes were amplified and sequenced on an Illumina MiniSeq for three diffe

SUBMITTER: Boggs LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6627524 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature