Portfolio Category: Solution Stories

While the basic requirements of environmental DNA (eDNA) sample collection are simple – pass water (or air) through a micron pore-size filter – a wide variety of apparatuses have been developed. Many of these are complicated (peristaltic pumps, filter funnels and flasks), heavy (rechargeable batteries), expensive (Smith-Root eDNA Sampler Backpack) and/or generate significant non-recyclable waste…

Over time, qPCR assays have steadily superseded PCR assays, both for their ability to provide quantitation of target copy number, as well as decreasing the risk of carry-forward contamination since there is no need to open reaction tubes containing amplified DNA. However, one of the requirements for qPCR assays is a series of (usually) 10-fold…

Right from Pisces’ beginning we have archived all sample DNA extracts. Our typical spin-column DNA extraction procedure gives a final volume of DNA extract of 200 µL. A PCR or qPCR reaction uses 2 to 4 µL of DNA extract, so even testing in triplicate (the standard for eDNA samples) uses only 12 µL. Rather…

As a part of their work on Trout Whirling Disease, Beauchamp, et al. determined that there were four sub-species or lineages of Tubifex tubifex, the alternate host for Myxobolus cerebralis, and that the lineages had different sensitivity to infection by M.c. (Beauchamp, et al., 2002). Since this differential susceptibility might be expected to have an…