DNA metabarcoding using nrITS2 provides highly qualitative and quantitative results for airborne pollen monitoring.

ABSTRACT: Airborne pollen monitoring is of global socio-economic importance as it provides information on presence and prevalence of allergenic pollen in ambient air. Traditionally, this task has been performed by microscopic investigation, but novel techniques are being developed to automate this process. Among these, DNA metabarcoding has the highest potential of increasing the taxonomic resolution, but uncertainty exists about whether the results can be used to quantify pollen abundance. In this study, it is shown that DNA metabarcoding using trnL and nrITS2 provides highly improved taxonomic resolution for pollen from aerobiological samples from the Netherlands. A total of 168 species from 143 genera and 56 plant families were detected, while using a microscope only 23 genera and 22 plant famili

SUBMITTER: Polling M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8651626 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature