Where in the World are MO BIO Kits being used?
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Chiricahuan Mountains Leopard Frogs, Arizona
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Vibrio cultures from seawater, plankton and oyster tissue, Venezuela
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University of Connecticut in Storrs, CTBad bugs, good bugs! Soil-borne plant pathogens are a constant threat to crop health. Beneficial microbes can keep these pathogens in check in natural soils, as well as in soil-less potting mixes used for greenhouse and nursery production. Specific beneficial microbes have been isolated and are used as inoculants to suppress pathogens. Graduate student Anuthep Pasura, working under the direction of Dr. George Elliott in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT, has developed real-time PCR assays for several beneficial microbes and a soil-borne pathogen. He is using the PCR assays to follow population dynamics of microbial inoculants and the pathogen in different soil-less potting mixes. A key to success in this project is the PowerSoil DNA Isolation kit. According to Anuthep, using this kit has made it possible to extract good quality inhibitor-free microbial DNA from potting mixes that contain 75 to 85% organic matter.
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Arabia Mountain in Lithonia, Georgia
Dr. Nitya Jacob, Assistant Professor at Oxford College of Emory University, is working on a project in the granite outcrop in Arabia Mountain in Lithonia, Georgia. The picture above shows two of her undergrad research students at the field site (both are sophomores). On the left is Kristen Peterson and to the right is Hillary Olivier wearing the MO BIO shirt.. Dr. Jacob’s laboratory is investigating the microbial community structure in plant islands of Arabia Mountain, a granite rock outcrop in Piedmont Georgia. According to Dr. Jacob, these plants grow in relatively shallow and sometimes grainy soil resulting from granite rock erosion. The plants are exposed to an extreme environment and microbes living in their soils have not been characterized extensively. “ We are currently examining the microbes associated with the rhizospheres of three plants: Sedum smallii, Senecio tomentosus, and Viguiera porterii” Dr. Jacob said. “We are using the approach of preparing 16S rDNA clone libraries amplified from genomic DNA extracted from these rhizosphere soils using the MO BIO Power Soil DNA extraction system. The MO BIO system has worked very well with these difficult soils.”
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Guababara Bay, Brazil
Dr. Leda Christina Mendonca-Hagler and her colleagues at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University characterize mangrove sediments in a highly-polluted region of the Guababara Bay, Brazil. It is a challenge to identify the most efficient oil degrading bacteria in a polluted environment. They isolate DNA of soil-degrading bacteria from the rhizospheres of mangrove plants using our UltraClean™ Soil DNA Isolation Kits.
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Juan de Fuca Ridge, Oregon
Erik Cordes and colleagues from Harvard University use our PowerSoil™ DNA Isolation Kit to extract DNA from the walls of hydrothermal vent chimneys from the Juan de Fuca Ridge, 2500 m deep off the coast of Oregon. Deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimneys are composed of an incredibly complex mineralogy, including numerous metals, trace metals and other contaminants. Erik mentioned that the kit “has worked incredibly well so far, has proven to be far easier and faster than most standard protocols, and has produced higher yields than most other techniques we have tried”. |
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Watkinsville, GeorgiaDr. Kamlesh Jangid is a post doctoral associate from the department of Microbiology at the University of Georgia.
Shown in the picture (above) is Dr. Kamlesh Jangid collecting soil samples from one of the forests currently under the control of the USDA in Watkinsville, Georgia. This forest has not had any human activity since the Civil War in Georgia back in the 1850’s. Dr Jangid quoted: “The PowerMax kit has been the best kit that I have used in the past to isolate DNA from any kind of soil”. He recalls the days before he tried PowerMax. He had to put in 2 days to extract the DNA. Then in most cases, at the end of this very extensive process, he could not even amplify the DNA. Now, with the MO BIO PowerMax kit, he has a 100% success rate to date. |
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Olive Oil Factory, MoroccoDr. Laurie Casalot, from the French Research Institute for Development (Marseilles, France), Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology of Hot Climates, extracts really complex samples from a settling tank at a semi-industrial olive oil factory in Morocco. The samples were collected at two different periods: 2 weeks after the oil-production campaign and 7 months after this campaign. In the meantime, the outside temperature reached more than 40 °C and the water evaporated leaving only an extremely viscous solution (see picture below), making the samples quite challenging for extracting DNA. 
To test the performance of the PowerClean DNA Clean-Up Kit, Dr. Casalot and her team did different experiments. They took their samples and isolated the DNA with various methods including the MO BIO PowerSoil DNA Isolation Kit. They did a series of PCR amplifications on their isolated DNA before and after using the PowerClean DNA Clean-Up Kit. In addition, they took an archived sample that they were previously unable to amplify under any conditions. The archived sample was purified with PowerCleanTM DNA Clean-Up Kit and the same amplifications were performed. Dr. Casalot said: "We were quite satisfied with the results since we obtained amplifications with all the samples, including the archived one that we were previously unable to amplify. The amplifications were quite strong in comparison with the ones obtained before purification." An extremely good result was obtained with three of the samples that were very challenging. Finally, while not every sample required an additional clean up step for successful PCR, Dr. Casalot emphasizes that she would recommend the PowerClean DNA Clean-Up Kit to any person working with challenging samples like hers.
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Heybridge, TasmaniaDeveloping a biological reduction cell to remediate heavy metal and acid-containing industrial and mine leachatesAlison Dann is a Ph.D. candidate whose project is to study the environmental impact of an old industrial production plant in Tasmania. It was operated between 1948 and 1996 in Heybridge, located on the north coast of Tasmania on the Blythe River catchment. During the plant’s operation sulfuric acid/iron oxide waste was discharged directly into Bass Strait, resulting in elevated metal concentrations and a highly visible red plume along the coastline locally suppressing the marine benthic biota and altering biodiversity. The leachate is very similar to acid mine drainage. A passive in situ bioremediation strategy was developed, in which a series of “cells” and wetlands were built to remove metals and increase pH. The cells consist of a “potato cell” and four “reduction cells.” The “cells” utilize readily available agricultural waste products, potatoes, straw and mushroom compost as organic carbon sources for sulfate-reducing bacteria which reduce sulfate and metals while raising the pH for a healthier environment. The goals of Alison’s project are to characterize the bacterial community and enhance the system by testing various substrates or manipulations to increase bacterial efficiency of removing the pollutants. She uses MO BIO’s PowerSoil™ DNA Isolation Kit to get purified DNA out of the acidic, metal-rich leachate. For PCR and clone library analysis she uses MO BIO’s UltraClean-htp™ 96 Well PCR Clean-Up Kit and 6 Minute Plasmid Prep Kits. She also does TRFLP (Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism) to track the bacterial diversity changes over time and using different substrates. Alison mentions that “For TRFLP you need very clean and purified DNA and MO BIO kits provide this every time, I have never had a problem.” 
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Auckland, New ZealandThe Hidden Secret of Soil:
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The Everglades, Florida
Below left picture: Dr. Andrew Ogram’s microbial ecology team from the University of Florida, is doing some airboat sampling. Below right picture: Ms Puja Jasrotia is using the UltraClean Plant DNA Isolation Kit to isolate the DNA from the floating periphyton, which is a mix of algae, fungi and bacterial communities which fix nitrogen dead plant material.
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Apalachicola Bay, Florida
This sampling trip by Dr. Henry N. Williams laboratory from environmental Sciences institute of Florida A&M University, Tallahassee: UltraClean Water DNA Isolation Kit works great! |
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Chesapeake Bay, MarylandDr. Henry William (FAMU) and Dr. Silvia Pineiro’s (Univ. Maryland) collaborate to study predator bacterial biodiversity in Chesapeake Bay (below left). TimKhite and Wisal, graduate students, are on a cruise sampling in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland to understand the genotypes of unique predator bacterium-Bdellovibrio and like organisms (below right).
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Milagro Fernández is currently a Ph.D. student in Biological Sciences at Simon Bolivar University, Venezuela. Her Ph.D. thesis subject is on detection and isolation of Vibrios in a marine coastal environment of Venezuela. She uses our UltraClean Microbial DNA Isolation Kit for DNA extraction of Vibrio cultures from seawater, plankton, and oyster tissue.
Dr. Ashvini Chauhan and his team, from the Environmental Sciences Institution Tallahassee, Florida, used the MO BIO Plant DNA Isolation Kit to conduct some samplings prior to the big hurricanes in Florida last year. Dr Chauhan quotes: “Your products are so user friendly and whatever staff at MO BIO that I have interacted with, are all so helpful”.
Sampling in Apalachicola Bay to understand the genotypes of unique predator bacterium-Bdellovibrio and like organisms.
Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute (TAFI)
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Kevin Redd, PhD candidate, and colleages at the School of Zoology, Marine Research Laboratories, TAFI-University of Tasmania use MO BIO's UltraClean fecal DNA kit and high throughput 96 well soil DNA isolation system for their research.
The goals of the project are to examine the range of prey consumed by the southern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) and to further the understanding of the role that this predator has in the marine environment. In Australia, rock lobsters are the basis of important commercial and recreational fisheries and are sold live to discerning international markets. We have developed non-lethal techniques to collect fecal material from live rock lobsters so that our sampling efforts can be conducted in marine protected areas and in conjunction commercial fishing operations.
DNA-based techniques have proven to be very effective in cases where conventional gut content analysis by dissection is not practical or ethically feasible. The MO BIO Ultra Clean™ Fecal DNA Kit gives the best results for isolating high quality DNA from the collected lobster fecal material and facilitates PCR based prey detection. Newly emerging techniques in molecular biology are being used to identify prey species by their unique DNA signatures in these fecal samples after the DNA is isolated with the Ultra Clean Fecal DNA Kit.
We are currently using universal PCR primers to create clone libraries of all rock lobster prey items and designing species-specific PCR primers to detect prey in dietary samples. The sampling of lobsters occurs across a broad range of habitats and geographic regions and will include marine protected areas as well as heavily fished locations. The results of this field study, funded by the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), will be used to determine both habitat and prey utilization as well as ecosystem based effects of fishing on the wild population of southern rock lobsters in Tasmania.
McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
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Dr.Jenny Baeseman of Princeton University is currently in McMurdo, Antarctica using MO BIO's DNA isolation kits for soil and tells us,"They are working wonderfully!" "I'm studying the bacteria that live in the streams in the Dry Valleys, so the biomass is low but the kits are working great", she notes.
"I am using MO BIO's soil kits to extract bacterial DNA from stream sediments. We are conducting a biogeographic survey of the overall 16S diversity of bacteria in the streams, specifically looking for differences in species abundance and what environmental factors, such as stream flow, water chemistry, and temperature may effect community structure". Dr.Baeseman is planning to do a similar study looking at nirS and nirK genes to begin to understand the denitrification community present in these streams, and the factors that may influence their distribution and seasonal patterns.
Dr. Jenny Baeseman, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University and Amber Roche from the University of Colorado - Boulder. Jenny's work is funded by an NSF Microbial Biology Postdoctoral Fellowship and the NSF Office of Polar Programs in conjunction with Bess Ward at Princeton. Amber is working with the McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER and is a student of Diane McKnight at UC-Boulder.
Mammoth Caves, Central Kentucky USA
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We place “traps” that encourage the growth of cave bacteria and use MO BIO products to extract DNA (Soil Mega Prep Kits, Microbial DNA isolation kits) and we also use your PCR cleanup kits in these experiments.
Mammoth Cave is by far the longest cave in the world. Mammoth Cave National Park was established to preserve the cave system, including Mammoth Cave, the scenic river valleys of the Green and Nolin rivers, and a section of south central Kentucky. This is the longest recorded cave system in the world with more than 360 miles explored and mapped. This site is called Mystic River and is located at the lowest level (“base level”) of the cave where water slowly dissolves away limestone and continues the process of cave formation. We are monitoring the communities of bacteria at cave sites home to unique and endangered species such as the Mammoth Cave blind shrimp and the eyeless cave fish. This work is sponsored by the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI), a division of the National Park Service.
Rick Fowler, WATERS Laboratory, Western Kentucky University/Mammoth Cave National Park
John Andersland and Rick Olson photgraphers (not pictured)
Antarctica's Victoria Land
We use the soil DNA (need the mega) and RNA extraction kits for soils for the dry valleys in Antarctica's Victoria Land photo attached.
Our study is focused on yeast and other micro-eukaryotes in the soils.
By the way, your kits have saved us quite a bit of time and work well for these samples
Cheers
Dr. Laurie B Connell
Research Assistant Professor
School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine
MO BIO in Space, International Space Station, altitude of 250 statute miles orbiting the earth
UltraClean Microbial DNA Kit was used on the International Space Station (ISS) in a study designed to provide a baseline of microbial characterization onboard the ISS during the initial stages of construction and habitation. The MO BIO Kit was used to isolate genomic DNA from microbial isolates obtained on the ISS. The complete reference is below.
Castro, V.A. et al., Microbial Characterization during the Early Habitation of the International Space Station. Microbial Ecology 47: 119-126 (2004).
Click here to read more about the International Space Station