Published in

The Royal Society, Biology Letters, 9(10), p. 20140562, 2014

DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0562

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

DNA metabarcoding and the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I marker: not a perfect match

Journal article published in 2014 by Bruce E. Deagle, Simon N. Jarman ORCID, Eric Coissac ORCID, François Pompanon, Pierre Taberlet
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Policy details
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

DNA metabarcoding enables efficient characterization of species composition in environmental DNA or bulk biodiversity samples, and this approach is making significant and unique contributions in the field of ecology. In metabarcoding of animals, the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene is frequently used as the marker of choice because no other genetic region can be found in taxonomically verified databases with sequences covering so many taxa. However, the accuracy of metabarcoding datasets is dependent on recovery of the targeted taxa using conserved amplification primers. We argue that COI does not contain suitably conserved regions for most amplicon-based metabarcoding applications. Marker selection deserves increased scrutiny and available marker choices should be broadened in order to maximize potential in this exciting field of research.