Microbiome Collection and Room Temperature Preservation

Microbial content and diversity within collected gut, rectal, skin, oral, nasopharyngeal, vaginal, soil, or water samples can provide a wealth of clues about human and animal health as well as environmental conditions. However, current microbiome collection methods subject the samples to harsh and stressful stabilization techniques such as freezing or organic solvents. Both stabilization approaches have a high probability of altering the microbial representation in the sample, which could lead to misleading results and hinder proper modeling or data analysis.

iSWAB-Microbiome is a non-toxic stabilizing technology that maintains the status quo at the time of collection and inactivates bacteria, fungi, spores, and viruses, allowing ambient collection and transport of various biosamples. iSWAB-Microbiome provides a representative snapshot of the microbial community that remains unchanged from collection to processing of gut/fecal, oral, nasopharyngeal, skin, vaginal, soil, and water samples. Purified microbial DNA or RNA isolated from collected samples are compatible with molecular assays such as 16S/metagenomics NGS, qPCR, analytical PCR, microarray etc. enabling microbiome research in health, wellness, forensics, and agriculture.

The iSWAB-Microbiome device is also the ideal solution for COVID-19 sample collection.