Microbial community standards

The field of microbiomics and metagenomic research has been one of the fastest growing fields in the past couple of years. With the use of next-generation sequencing, microbial composition profiling techniques are becoming routine in microbiomics research. However, these analytical techniques can suffer from significant bias from collection to analysis.

Cambridge Bioscience offers standards from Zymo Research who were the first to release standards for assessing bias in any microbiomics workflow.

Detecting bias in the microbiomic workflow

Standards available

ZymoBIOMICS™ standards	Microbial Community Standard		Microbial Community Standard II		Spike in control
Formats	Microbial cell	Isolated DNA	Microbial cells	Isolated DNA	High microbial load	Low microbial load
Detect bias in	Complete workflow and DNA extraction	Library prep and sequencing	Complete workflow and DNA extraction	Library prep and sequencing	Complete workflow and DNA extraction	Complete workflow and DNA extraction
Recommended use	General benchmarking and microbiome profiling positive control		Assess detection limit and sensitivity		Absolute quantification of high bacterial load samples e.g. faeces	Absolute quantification of low bacterial load samples e.g. sputum

For long read library prep and sequencing, a high molecular weight DNA standard is available. This isolated DNA standard can be used as a positive control for general benchmarking and microbiome profiling.

Microbiomic and metagenomic portfolio
We offer a comprehensive solution for microbiomic and metagenomic research from collection to analyses.