Comparative Study of Five Commercially Available Saliva Collection Kits for DNA Extraction

Obtaining DNA samples through saliva samples is becoming more common, and more companies are responding to this demand with saliva collection/DNA extraction kits.

The University of Pittsburgh's School of Dental Medicine maintains a DNA bank, which our lab helps direct. While we have always used Oragene (DNAGenotek, Kanata, Canada) kits to collect samples in the past, we recently compared 5 alternative kits/methods in an effort to reduce costs while maintaining quality. The kits/ methods were: Norgen (Norgen Biotek Corp., Thorold, Canada), Stratec (Stratec Biomedical, Birkenfeld, Germany), DNAgard (Biomatrica, San Diego, CA, USA), Oasis (Oasis Diagnostics, Vancouver, WA, USA), and an inhouse protocol for DNA extraction from whole saliva. We compared 7 protocols for extracting DNA from saliva using 5 commercially available kits. We primarily looked at total DNA yield, but also considered cost, ease of sample collection, and complexity of extraction protocol.

When compared to the Oragene kits, only Norgen and Startec had comparable DNA yields (30 µg or more). Oasis was the easiest to use in terms of sample collection.

When compared to our whole saliva DNA extraction protocol, all kits had higher yields, shorter extraction time, and easier protocols.