Table 2. Summary of the advantageous and disadvantageous associated with each method of tissue homogenisation.

Method of tissue homogenisation	Advantages	Disadvantages	Applicability
Ceramic bead homogenisation	High DNA yield, rapid tissue homogenisation, compatibility with RNA and metabolite sample preparations	Overestimation of DNA concentration using absorbance based methods of quantification (e.g., NanoDrop) due to carapace interference, requires quantification with fluorescence dye, mechanical DNA fragmentation	Suitable for high throughput sample homogenisation and automation, simultaneous extraction of RNA, DNA and metabolites, suitable for downstream analyses requiring average fragment size (e.g., RRBS, WGBS, Next-Seq and HiSeq)
Plastic pellet pestles	High quality and high DNA yield, large fragments of DNA	Overestimation of DNA concentration using absorbance based methods of quantification (e.g., NanoDrop) due to carapace interference, time consuming, possible cross-contamination	Suitable for downstream analyses requiring large DNA fragments (long-read sequencing)
Proteinase K digestion	Low level of carapace contamination, absorbance based methods of quantitation are less affected	Highly fragmented DNA, low DNA yield, time consuming	Suitable for PCR based methods

Notes.

Abbreviations

WGBS

Whole genome bisulfite sequencing

RRBS

Reduced representation bisulfite sequencing