Impact of sampling regions and storage methods on fecal gut microbiome and metabolome profiles

A multi-institution workshop made the case for a characterised whole-stool reference material so microbiome measurements can be standardised across labs, addressing the absence of defined faecal inputs.

Toward a human whole-stool reference material for metabolomic and metagenomic gut-microbiome measurements — Mandal et al., Metabolomics · source ↗

• standardised-input
• metabolome
• standards
• microbiome
• metagenomics
• stool
• validation

In children, stool preserved in OMNIgene-GUT kept its microbial community structure better than unpreserved stool, with alpha and beta diversity similar to direct freezing, which supports the kit for decentralised stool collection from children.

Omnigene-Gut^tm ensures fecal microbiome stability in the pediatric population — Hoogendijk et al., AMB Express · source ↗

• dct
• stabilised
• dna-genotek-omnigene
• microbiome
• pediatric
• stool
• validation

An ambient-temperature DNA Genotek device recovered 94.5% of the metabolites seen in flash-frozen aliquots with strong agreement: room-temperature stabilisation can stand in for immediate freezing.

An ambient-temperature stabilisation device performs comparably to flash-frozen collection for stool metabolomics in infants — Ramamoorthy et al., BMC Microbiology · source ↗

• stool
• stabilised
• dna-genotek-omnigene
• metabolome
• validation
• pediatric

Comparison of six stool collection methods in healthy volunteers found OMNIgene Gut, FOBT cards, RNAlater and Microlution were reliable for metagenomics, whereas 95% ethanol best preserved metabolite profiles; the authors recommend using separate collection methods for different analytical aims in large population studies.

Comparison of Fecal Collection Methods on Variation in Gut Metagenomics and Untargeted Metabolomics — Guan et al., mSphere · source ↗

• stabilised
• multimodal
• dna-genotek-omnigene
• metabolome
• microbiome
• stool
• validation
• multi-omics

This study compared four stool collection methods for infant gut microbiome analysis via post and found that the OMNIgene•GUT kit showed the closest agreement with the frozen standard compared to swabs or plain tubes. The findings suggest that stabilised collection offers a viable decentralised solution for parents to sample infant stool at home with minimal DNA degradation.

Gut microbiome analysis by post: Evaluation of the optimal method to collect stool samples from infants within a national cohort study — Williams et al., PloS one · source ↗

• stool
• stabilised
• dna-genotek-omnigene
• self-collection
• validation
• pediatric
• microbiome