Sea stars bacterial sampling
Collected sea stars by hand.
Rinse the location for sampling of the star with sterile seawater to remove any transient microbes.
This is important since the stars are in constant contact with environmental microbes and our sequencing technique is very sensitive; therefore, rinsing reduces noise.
For healthy individuals the sampling site (where the swabbing will occur) should be approximately 15 by 10 cm.
Remove a clean sterile swab from its wrapping and the cotton tip should be applied to the previously rinsed sample location.
The swab should be pulled across the sample location with moderate pressure.
One ‘swab’ consists of pulling the swab back and forth one; this should be done 10 times.
The swab should be placed into a labeled sterile screw cap tube and then kept on ice until it can be frozen at -80°.
Swabs are then ready for DNA extraction.
Previously we have used a MoBio PowerSoil Kit.
