Improvements for comparative analysis of changes in diversity of microbial communities using internal standards in PCR‐DGGE

The use of internal standards both during DNA extraction and PCR‐DGGE procedure gives the opportunity to analyse the relative abundance of individual species back to the original sample, thereby facilitating relative comparative analysis of diversity. Internal standards were used throughout the DNA extraction and PCR‐DGGE to compensate for experimental variability. Such variability causes decreased reproducibility among replicate samples as well as compromise comparisons between samples, since experimental errors cannot be differentiated from actual changes in the community abundance and structure. The use of internal standards during DNA extraction and PCR‐DGGE is suitable for ecological and ecotoxicological experiments with microbial communities, where relative changes in the community abundance and structure are studied. We have developed a protocol Internal Standards in Molecular Analysis of Diversity (ISMAD) that is simple to use, inexpensive, rapid to perform and it does not require additional samples to be processed. The internal standard for DNA extraction (Extr IS ) is a fluorescent 510‐basepair PCR product which is added to the samples prior to DNA extraction, recovered together with the extracted DNA from the samples and analysed with fluorescence spectrophotometry. The use of Extr IS during isolation of sample DNA significantly reduced variation among replicate samples. The PCR internal standard (PCR IS ) originates from the Drosophila melanogaster genome and is a 140‐basepair long PCR product, which is amplified by non‐competitive primers in the same PCR reaction tubes as the target DNA and analysed together with the target PCR product on the same DGGE gel. The use of PCR IS during PCR significantly reduced variation among replicate samples both when assessing total PCR product and when comparing bands representing species on a DGGE gel. The entire ISMAD protocol was shown to accurately describe changes in relative abundance in an environmental sample using PCR‐DGGE. It should, however, be mentioned that despite the use of ISMAD some inherent biases still exist in DNA extraction and PCR‐DGGE and these should be taken into consideration when interpreting the diversity in a sample based on a DGGE gel.