Integrated Microbiome Resource (IMR)

Submissions Guidelines

Note: Renovation and holiday closure of the IMR from Dec.14th-Jan.5th (inclusive) - last date for sample reception Friday Dec.13th.

Contact the IMR Manager directly to initiate your project's consultation, then download our Excel form:

Sample Submission Form (ver.20-Jul2024)

This form is to be filled out with all of your details for tracking purposes and has sample preparation and shipping guidelines (please pay careful attention for international clients). After submission, your samples will be given a unique project/sample identifier in the form of "IMR-YYYYMM-00" which will allow sample tracking, will show up on your billing information and be listed in the online queue.

Please visit our Real-Time Queue in order to see the length of the current delay until your sequencing will be complete.

In order to offer as flexible (and economical) a service as possible to the community, clients do not have to fill complete runs. The main way sequencing is done is that your samples are mixed with other clients - this may take a bit longer (primarily for NextSeq/PacBio runs - MiSeq runs are always full) in the pipeline as we wait for the remainder of the run slots to be filled by other projects/individuals. Dalhousie clients (since internal) and Commercial clients (since they help subsidize for academics by paying a premium) receive queue priority, but for external academics, in extreme cases of important deadlines, there are some options for expediting your service (contact us).

Sample Minimum Requirements

For amplicon sequencing (MiSeq/PacBio):

Concentration: >1 ng/µL (preferrably >10 ng/µL, dilute samples >200 ng/µL); we do not re-quantify incoming DNAs for amplicon PCRs
Volume: 10 µL of each sample (this volume is enough for two different targets, such as 16S + 18S; if selecting more targets, send 15 uL or more)
Quality: "clean" DNA coming from commercial kit or proven manual method; spec A260/230 preferrably >2.0

For client-prepared pool of amplicons (MiSeq):

Purified final library at >1 ng/µL (preferrably >10 ng/µL) in at least 10 µL; we re-quantify incoming libraries (not oligos below) using Qubit
If using custom primers, provide 10 µL each of Read1 + Read2 + Index primers at 100 µM

For genome sequencing (MiSeq/NextSeq):

Concentration: >1 ng/µL (preferrably >10 ng/µL); we re-quantify incoming DNAs using Qubit or Quant-iT
Volume: 10 µL of each sample (15-20 µL preferred)
Quality: spec A260/280 and A260/230 ratios as close to 1.8 and 2.0 as possible (or over), since library prep (Nextera Flex) is sensitive to DNA quality

For genome sequencing (PacBio):

Amount: >300 ng (at least 6.5 ng/µL) of high-molecular weight; we re-quantify incoming DNAs using Qubit or Quant-iT
Volume: max. 47 µL into assay of each sample (give 5 uL extra for QC)
Quality: spec A260/280 and A260/230 ratios as close to 1.8 and 2.0 as possible (or over), since library prep (PacBio) is very sensitive to DNA quality

For metagenomic sequencing (NextSeq):

Same as NextSeq genomes above

For metagenomic sequencing (PacBio):

Same as PacBio genomes above

For (meta)transcriptomics (NextSeq):

Concentration: >4 ng/µL (preferrably >10 ng/µL); we re-quantify incoming RNAs using Qubit or Quant-iT
Volume: 25 µL of each sample (50 µL preferred in case of redos)
Quality: RIN should ideally be 8 or above, but successful library prep is still possible with samples with RIN values ~3-8.

For Iso-Seq transcripts (PacBio):

For Poly-A selected cDNA = same as PacBio genome requirements above.
For raw RNA = Inquire!