Collection of blood, saliva, and buccal cell samples in a pilot study on the Danish nurse cohort: Comparison of the response rate and quality of genomic DNA

In this study, we compared the response rates of blood, saliva, and buccal cell samples in a pilot study on the Danish nurse cohort and examined the quantity and quality of the purified genomic DNA. Our data show that only 31% of the requested participants delivered a blood sample, whereas 72%, 80%, and 76% delivered a saliva sample, buccal cell sample via mouth swabs, or buccal cell sample on FTA card, respectively. Analysis of purified genomic DNA by NanoDrop and agarose gel electrophoresis revealed that blood and saliva samples resulted in DNA with the best quality, whereas the DNA quality from buccal cells was low. Genotype and PCR analysis showed that DNA from 100% of the blood samples and 72% to 84% of the saliva samples could be genotyped or amplified, whereas none of the DNA from FTA cards and only 23% of the DNA from mouth swabs could be amplified and none of the DNA from swabs and 94% of the DNA from FTA cards could be genotyped. Our study shows that the response rate of self-collection saliva samples and buccal cell samples were much higher than the response rate of blood samples in our group of Danish nurses. However, only the quality of genomic DNA from saliva samples was comparable with blood samples as accessed by purity, genotyping, and PCR amplification. We conclude that the use of saliva samples is a good alternative to blood samples to obtain genomic DNA of high quality and it will increase the response rate considerably in epidemiologic studies.