Space/microgravity simulation: Extract DNA for MinION
Hello,
I hope to collect samples from lava tubes (microbial mats on the walls and nearby soils) to perform a metagenomics analysis. I will be in a remote region and will be conducting this as a "space simulation" as though I were on another planet.
Due to the lack of nearby sequencing infrastructure, I plan to use the Field Sequencing Kit from Oxford Nanopore MinION. MinION has been successfully used to sequence DNA on the International Space Station.
However, I need to first extract the DNA using some sort of DNA extraction kit. In the ISS study, DNA was already extracted and simply sent up as a payload to the ISS.
I previously considered using the Power Soil DNA Extraction kit (MoBio Laboratories, Inc.) as it was used to extract DNA from microbial mats in lava tubes in a previous publication. I believe that the Power Soil DNA Extraction kit has a new name and is now called DNeasy PowerSoil kit (Qiagen).
However, it seems these DNA extraction kits use >=70% alcohol, which may be disallowed on airplanes and space travel. As a result, I am trying to determine a DNA extraction kit/method that can work with microbial mats in a remote region and that may be usable in "simulated space missions" (i.e. without containing alcohol and achievable in microgravity).
I am assuming this question is quite esoteric and I have not performed DNA sequencing before. I am aware there may not be such kits that fit all the conditions. Still, I would be grateful to hear any ideas - even if they only pass some of the conditions. Thank you for sharing your ideas!
I hope to collect samples from lava tubes (microbial mats on the walls and nearby soils) to perform a metagenomics analysis. I will be in a remote region and will be conducting this as a "space simulation" as though I were on another planet.
Due to the lack of nearby sequencing infrastructure, I plan to use the Field Sequencing Kit from Oxford Nanopore MinION. MinION has been successfully used to sequence DNA on the International Space Station.
However, I need to first extract the DNA using some sort of DNA extraction kit. In the ISS study, DNA was already extracted and simply sent up as a payload to the ISS.
I previously considered using the Power Soil DNA Extraction kit (MoBio Laboratories, Inc.) as it was used to extract DNA from microbial mats in lava tubes in a previous publication. I believe that the Power Soil DNA Extraction kit has a new name and is now called DNeasy PowerSoil kit (Qiagen).
However, it seems these DNA extraction kits use >=70% alcohol, which may be disallowed on airplanes and space travel. As a result, I am trying to determine a DNA extraction kit/method that can work with microbial mats in a remote region and that may be usable in "simulated space missions" (i.e. without containing alcohol and achievable in microgravity).
I am assuming this question is quite esoteric and I have not performed DNA sequencing before. I am aware there may not be such kits that fit all the conditions. Still, I would be grateful to hear any ideas - even if they only pass some of the conditions. Thank you for sharing your ideas!