Preservation of the fecal samples at ambient temperature for microbiota analysis with a cost-effective and reliable stabilizer EffcGut

Abstract

With the increasing researches on the role of gut microbiota in human health and disease, appropriate storage method of fecal samples at ambient temperature would conveniently guarantee the precise and reliable microbiota results. Nevertheless, less choice of stabilizer that is cost-efficient and feasible to be used in longer preservation period obstructed the large-scale metagenomics studies. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of a guanidine isothiocyanate-based reagent method EffcGut and compared it with the other already used storage method by means of 16S rRNA gene sequencing technology. We found that guanidine isothiocyanate-based reagent method at ambient temperature was not inferior to OMNIgene·GUT OM-200 and it could retain the similar bacterial community as that of −80 °C within 24 weeks. Furthermore, bacterial diversity and community structure difference were compared among different sample fraction (supernatant, suspension and precipitate) preserved in EffcGut and −80 °C. We found that supernatant under the preservation of EffcGut retained the similar community structure and composition as that of the low temperature preservation method.