FIGURE 2.

Effect of the DNA extraction method on the abundance of fecal bacteria. Two different DNA extraction methods were compared for canine fecal samples, and the bacterial taxa were measured using identical quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays. ⁴⁹ Method 1 uses chemical lysis, whereas method 2 ⁴⁹ employs bead beating in addition to chemical lysis. Grey areas indicate the RIs for the targeted bacteria. Differences in methods will affect the measured the abundance in 16S rRNA gene sequencing and qPCR data. It is possible to establish RIs for specific taxa, but assays need to be analytically validated and performed with proper quality control to reproducibly assess the microbiota across studies and in clinical settings