Exome capture from saliva produces high quality genomic and metagenomic data

Jeffrey M Kidd, Thomas J Sharpton, Dean Bobo, Paul J Norman, Alicia R Martin, Meredith L Carpenter, Martin Sikora, Christopher R Gignoux, Neda Nemat-Gorgani, Alexandra Adams, Moraima Guadalupe, Xiaosen Guo, Qiang Feng, Yingrui Li, Xiao Liu, Peter Parham, Eileen G Hoal, Marcus W Feldman, Katherine S Pollard, Jeffrey D Wall, Carlos D Bustamante, Brenna M Henn

Targeted capture of genomic regions reduces sequencing cost while generating higher coverage by allowing biomedical researchers to focus on specific loci of interest, such as exons. Targeted capture also has the potential to facilitate the generation of genomic data from DNA collected via saliva or buccal cells. DNA samples derived from these cell types tend to have a lower human DNA yield, may be degraded from age and/or have contamination from bacteria or other ambient oral microbiota. However, thousands of samples have been previously collected from these cell types, and saliva collection has the advantage that it is a non-invasive and appropriate for a wide variety of research.