Metagenomic Taxonomical Analysis of Soil Microbial Colonies Via qPCR [Dordt College]

Abstract

A novel metagenomics method was produced for taxonomic analysis of a community of soil bacteria via quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Taxonomies were confirmed via phylum-specific primers targeting various regions of the 16S DNA gene. Through this method, the effects of common herbicides on soil bacterial communities were determined. This method was verified by direct comparison to shotgun sequencing of the same DNA library used for qPCR. Taxonomic analysis of a similar accuracy as metagenomic shotgun sequencing was achieved. The novel method improves the ability to taxonomically analyze soil bacterial communities without specialized equipment for DNA sequencing.