TY - JOUR T1 - Cannabis microbiome sequencing reveals several mycotoxic fungi native to dispensary grade cannabis flowers JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/030775 SP - 030775 AU - Kevin McKernan AU - Jessica Spangler AU - Lei Zhang AU - Vasisht Tadigotla AU - Yvonne Helbert AU - Theodore Foss AU - Douglas Smith Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/11/06/030775.abstract N2 - The Center for Disease Control estimates 128,000 people in the U.S. are hospitalized annually due to food borne illnesses. This has created a demand for food safety testing targeting the detection of pathogenic mold and bacteria on agricultural products. This risk extends to medical Cannabis and is of particular concern with inhaled, vaporized and even concentrated Cannabis products. As a result, third party microbial testing has become a regulatory requirement in the medical and recreational Cannabis markets, yet knowledge of the Cannabis microbiome is limited. Here we describe the first next generation sequencing survey of the microbial communities found in dispensary based Cannabis flowers and demonstrate the limitations in the culture based regulations that are being superimposed from the food industry. ER -