Table 1.

Differentiation of tested methods by variable

	Method 1	Method 2	Method 3	Method 4	Method 5	Method 6	Method 7
Early vs. Late bead-beatinga	Early	Late	Late	Early	Early	Early	Early
Bead Quantity	150 mg	150 mg	150 mg	75 mg	150 mg	150 mg	150 mg
Phenol vs. No Phenolb	No phenol	No phenol	Phenol	No phenol	Phenol	No phenol	No phenol
Precipitation Temp/Reagentc	RT/2-Prop	RT/2-Prop	Cold ETOH	RT/2-Prop	RT/2-Prop	Cold ETOH	RT/2-Prop
Precipitation Saltd	NaOAc	NaOAc	NaOAc	NaOAc	NaCl	NaOAc	NaOAc
Number of washes	3	3	3	3	3	3	5

^a “Early” bead-beating refers to the timing prior to enzymatic digestion; “Late” bead-beating refers to timing after enzymatic digestion

All Early bead-beating was done in high SDS concentration, see Additional file 1

^b DNA extractions in “no phenol” were extracted as described in Methods with chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (24:1, Tris-saturated)

Extractions in “phenol” were extracted using phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (25:24:1, Tris-saturated, pH 8.0)

^c Precipitation reagent was either RT 2-Prop (room temperature isopropanol) or Cold ETOH (ethanol). See Additional file 4: Figure S1

^d Precipitation salt was either 3 M sodium acetate (pH 5.2) or 5 M NaCl