In-Depth Analysis of the Microbial Diversity in Saliva Samples Preserved at Ambient Temperature for over 6 years

Norgen’s Saliva DNA Collection and Preservation Device was introduced several years ago to stabilize DNA in saliva samples during transportation at ambient temperature. Prior studies also have shown that the preservative could suppress the viability of microorganisms during transportation which might have benefits for many core facility lab workers dealing with potentially infectious samples daily. Furthermore, allowing ambient temperature sample shipping has been beneficial to many collaborative research projects which have been limited by sample transportation conditions and shipping cost. Here we present and discuss about the Microbial Diversity analysis using Illumina NGS platform (as a part of Norgen’s 16s rRNA metagenomics sequencing service) for the preserved saliva samples for over 6 years at ambient temperature. Saliva DNA was isolated at various time points using different saliva DNA isolation methods.  The complexity of the datasets was analyzed in phylogenetic trees, principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and relative abundance of predominant phyla. The sets of data showed that a level of microbial diversity can be affected by the time of preservation and the method of DNA isolation.