Table 1:

Methods to study microbiota

16S rRNA gene sequencing	Distinct from eukaryotes, ribosomal RNA is used to identify bacterial and archaeal species based on hypervariable regions. Provides only phylogenetic description of microbiome.
Metagenomics	Genomic analysis of microorganisms by direct sequencing of DNA
Shotgun RNA sequencing	Identifies transcriptional products of a microbiome.
Bioinformatics: Principal coordinate analysis Classical multidimensional scaling Extended similarity analysis Linear discriminant analysis effect size	Used to visualize similarities or dissimilarities in a complex data set.