At the time of processing, fecal samples were thawed, mixed, and placed (1 g) into
fecal DNA/RNA shield fecal collection tubes (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA). Samples were sent to be further processed and analyzed through the ZymoBIOMICS Service: Targeted Metagenomic Sequencing (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA). The
ZymoBIOMICS-96 MagBead DNA Kit (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA) was used to extract the DNA from fecal samples. The DNA samples were prepared for targeted sequencing with the
Quick-16 NGS Library Prep Kit (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA). The
ZymoBIOMICS Microbial Community Standard (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA) was used as a positive control for each DNA extraction and targeted library preparation. Negative controls (i.e., blank extraction control, blank library preparation control) were included to assess the level of bioburden carried by the wet-lab process. The V3–V4 region (primers 341F-806R) of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified with
Quick-16S Primer Set V3–V4 (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA). The final amplicon sizes, including primers, was ~350bp and ~460bp, respectively. The final library was sequenced on Illumina MiSeq with a v3 reagent kit (600 cycles). The sequencing was performed with >10% PhiX spike-in.
Slanzon G.S., Ridenhour B.J., Moore D.A., Sischo W.M., Parrish L.M., Trombetta S.C, & McConnel C.S. (2022). Fecal microbiome profiles of neonatal dairy calves with varying severities of gastrointestinal disease. PLoS ONE, 17(1), e0262317.