AOAC SPADA Meeting
SOIL TESTING
• Recommendations to evaluate candidate assays using soil samples was added to Part 2 of the Environmental Factors appendix in 2017: • 2.2: Soil Testing • “Airborne soil particles may constitute a significant challenge to the analysis of collected aerosol samples by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Soils contain genomic materials or nucleic acid fragments of countless archaebacterial, bacterial, and eukaryotic organisms. Some of the more common soil organisms can be anticipated. Soils may also contain unanticipated components that interfere with extraction, denaturation, polymerization, or annealing reactions. Therefore, determining the effect of a variety of representative soils on the robustness of a PCR assay is an important first step.” • However, instructions in the Soil Testing section are extremely limited because there was not a consensus on how to conduct soil testing , nor what kinds of soil samples to use (T&E; assay development; industry/gov’t )
WHY IMPORTANT Currently:
• Lack of uniformity for assay development and comparison of performance across vendors for the USG
• Limited soil representations
• Unknown soil composition as relates to bio assay performance testing
• The community does not evaluate an assays performance using consistent standard soil samples and standard methodology for testing
• Testing for cross reactivity and inhibition limited to the near neighbors
• Testing interferents conducted with identified operational interferents (i.e. diesel exhaust, sea salt, etc.) during DT, DT/OT and O
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