Fact or Artifact?
A study documenting the ubiquity of DNA contamination calls into question a recent paper on food-derived nucleic acids in the human bloodstream.
By Jef Akst | October 29, 2014
DNA from diverse species—including bacteria, plants, and humans—contaminates nearly every sample sent through a next-generation sequencer, according to a study published today (October 29) in PLOS ONE.
DNA contamination is a known problem, illuminated by the use of today’s uber-sensitive tools and techniques, which can detect, amplify, and sequence even a single molecule of the nucleic acid. This latest analysis finds that the degree of contamination is inversely related to the starting concentration of a sample, demonstrates that “blank” controls may not be sufficient, and makes the case that a recent study claiming to have found evidence of food-derived DNA in the human bloodstream may have been the result of contamination.
Together with other recent documentations of the widespread nature of DNA contamination, this study suggests “that these really eye-popping kind of papers that tell us there are foreign sequences in everything—that our nucleic acids are this mishmash of everything that we interact with in the environment—they may very well be overstating the point,” said Ken Witwer, a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine who was not involved in the work.
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Jason |
