A Direct DNA Extraction Workflow for Metabarcoding Fungal Bioaerosols From Adhesive Samplers.

An optimized DNA extraction protocol enables direct ITS2-based metabarcoding of fungal bioaerosols from adhesive samplers, revealing site-specific and seasonal fungal diversity.

• Why it matters: Understanding fungal bioaerosol diversity is crucial for assessing impacts on human health and agriculture, but current culture-dependent methods underestimate this diversity and lack standardized DNA extraction techniques for adhesive surfaces.
• What they did: The researchers developed and validated a DNA extraction method for adhesive films used in a 96-well plate sealing film ('Sticky sampler') and applied it to field samples from four farms and a garden to analyze fungal communities.
• The result: The approach uncovered pronounced site-specific and seasonal variations in fungal communities, demonstrating that adhesive samplers with optimized DNA extraction are practical, inexpensive tools for scalable environmental bioaerosol surveillance.