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Access through your institution Buy or subscribe DNA contamination is ubiquitous in laboratory reagents commonly used to analyse the microbes that inhabit the human body. Susannah Salter at

the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, Alan Walker at the University of Aberdeen, UK, and their colleagues used off-the-shelf DNA-extraction kits and two common techniques to

sequence a pure culture of the bacterium _Salmonella bongori_ as well as a series of diluted versions. Contamination by other bacterial species increased with each dilution, and quickly

drowned out the original _S. bongori_ signal. The team traced at least part of the problem to the DNA-extraction kits, which are not sold as sterile. This is a preview of subscription

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ARTICLE Beware tainted microbe studies. _Nature_ 515, 315 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/515315b Download citation * Published: 19 November 2014 * Issue Date: 20 November 2014 * DOI:

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