Evaluation of V2 18S rDNA barcode marker and assessment of sample collection and DNA extraction methods for metabarcoding of autotrophic euglenids

Even though the interest in metabarcoding in environmental studies is growing, euglenids are still underrepresented in both sea and freshwater bodies researches. The reason for this situation could be the unsuitability of universal eukaryotic DNA barcodes and primers as well as the lack of a verified protocol, suitable to assess euglenid diversity. In this study, using specific primers for the V2 hypervariable region of 18S rDNA for metabarcoding resulted in obtaining a high fraction (85%) of euglenid reads and species‐level identification of almost 90% of them. Fifty species were detected by the metabarcoding method, including almost all species observed using a light microscope. We investigated three biomass harvesting methods (filtering, centrifugation and scraping the side of a collection vessel) and determined that centrifugation and filtration outperformed scrapes, but the choice between them is not crucial for the reliability of the analysis. In addition, eight DNA extraction methods were evaluated. We compared five commercially available DNA isolation kits, two CTAB‐based protocols and a chelating resin. For this purpose, the efficiency of extraction, quality of obtained DNA, preparation time and generated costs were taken into consideration. After examination of the aforementioned criteria, we chose the GeneMATRIX Soil DNA Purification Kit as the most suitable for DNA isolation.