See post for details on swabbing mussel shells and extracting DNA from the swabs.

Background info on the project

Post: FHL 2026 Experiment Details

Swabbing the Mussel Shells

At the experiment take-down, I saved the mussels in the treatment bags they were already in by putting them immediately into the -80C.

Dissecting out the mussel tissue for DNA extraction happened in the Roberts’ Lab, and at the same time I swabbed the shells and saved the swabs at -80C.

Protocol here.

Essentially, I pulled the whirlpak bags out of the -80C and let them thaw at room temp for 1.5hours.

Then for each bag, I opened it wide, laid it flat on the table, and pushed the mussel up towards the opening of the bag, making sure the upward-facing shell half was not rubbing along the inside of the bag on the way up. I then took a sterile flocked-tipped cotton swab and swabbed the mussel shell for 10 s, put it into a labeled 1.5mL tube, and into the -80C.

Extracting the DNA

I followed the same protocol as for the eelgrass tissue swabs. I used the modified protocol from Becca Maher (she extracted DNA from cotton swabs that had swabbed eelgrass tissue). I used the DNeasy PowerSoil Pro Kit (50) (QIAGEN® catalogue: 47014). Protocol notes: here.

Samples Processed:

Extraction Notes:

During the process of getting the swab for sample SM_EM_04 into the tube for extraction, it flicked out of the sterile tweezer’s grasp and onto dirty floor… so I tossed that sample.

So, the actual samples I extracted DNA from are:

Next Steps

Run 2ul of the DNA in triplicate on qPCR targetted for Vibrio pectenicida.

The extracted DNA lives in the right -80C in FTR.