TABLE 4.

Comparison of the abundances of Bacteroides spp. at different hierarchical levels as reported in the published literature

Reference	Method	Sampling size	Relative abundance (%) of bacteria classified as:
			Bacteroides-Prevotella	B. fragilis subgroup	P. distasonis subgroup	Bth274-related subgroup	B. vulgatus	B. thetaiotaomicron	B. uniformis	B. caccae
Franks et al. (16)	FISHa	Fecal samples from 9 subjects	NAd	21 (Bfra602 and Bdis656 related)	21 (Bfra602 and Bdis656 related)	NDe	ND	ND	ND	ND
Harmsen et al. (19)	FISH	Fecal samples from 11 subjects	27.7 (Bac303 related)	ND	ND	ND	ND	ND	ND	ND
Rigottier-Gois et al. (34)	FISH	Fecal samples from 20 subjects	14.5 (Bac303 related)	3.9 (Bfra998 related)	0.4 (Bdist1025 related)	ND	4.2 (Bvg1017 related)	ND	ND	ND
Suau et al. (39)	16S rRNA clone library analysisb	Fecal samples from 1 subject; 284 clones	31	13.3	2.3	NA	2.1	1.4	4.9	1.1
Eckburg et al. (11)	16S rRNA clone library analysis	Mucosa and fecal samples from 3 subjects; total of 395 bacterial phylotypes	48	NA	NA	NA	15	6.2	NA	NA
This study	HOPEc	Fecal samples from 3 subjects	28.1-44.4 (Bac303 related)	5.0-12.1 (Bfrg602 related)	2.4-4.1 (Bdts_gp980 related)	1.5-1.9	1.4-6.0 (Bvg1016 related)	0.2-0.8 (Bth584 related)	0.4-0.9 (Bufm1018 related)	0.2-0.4 (Bcc1066 related)
This study	Q-PCRc	Fecal samples from 3 subjects	30.1-50.9 (Bac303 related)	4.7-14.8 (Bfrg602 related)	3.1-5.4 (Bdts_gp980 related)	1.7-2.0	ND	ND	ND	ND

^aResults from FISH analyses are expressed in terms of hybridized cell counts normalized against Eub338.

^bResults from clone library analyses are expressed with respect to the total numbers of clones selected.

^cResults from HOPE and Q-PCR are expressed with respect to the total set of PCR-amplified 16S rRNA genes.

^dNA, information not available in the literature.

^eND, not determined.