Zymo Research Corp. and Bertin have announced a collaboration that ensures the sample lysis step in the microbiome workflow is complete and unbiased. An application note is available describing the materials, procedure and results attained using the Precellys® Evolution Homogenizer together with the ZymoBIOMICS® Microbial Community Standards and  ZymoBIOMICS DNA Miniprep Kit for purification of the DNA. Using both companies’ products, the researcher is afforded unbiased cell lysis in only one minute. The application note validates a procedure for accurate downstream microbiome measurements.

Bead beating is an accepted method to lyse various microbes but until now we have not been able to accurately assess the efficiency of the lysis.  ”With the combination of Bertin’s homogenizer and Zymo Research’s Microbial Community Standard and DNA Miniprep Kit researchers and clinicians now have a rapid, complete homogenization procedure at their disposal ” said Marc Van Eden, Vice President of Business Development at Zymo Research Corp. “There are quite a few homogenizing technologies on the market and until now, very little scrutiny placed on their ability to yield complete microbial lysis. That is until now. The ZymoBIOMICS® Microbial Community Standard now lets the researcher test for themselves the “completeness” of their lysis step so accomodations can be made to their workflow for accuracy and reproducibility sake”.