Mucosal washes are useful for sampling intestine mucus-associated microbiota despite low biomass

Investigating the dynamic relationship between mucus-associated microbiota and host health-disease is an important research area. However, most studies focus on stool samples, which may not capture the composition of mucus-associated bacteria. In our research, we explore mucus-associated microbiota in the gastrointestinal tract of mice and the terminal ileum in humans, using three different sample types named: mucosal washes, scraping, and intestinal content in mice and biopsies and mucosal washes in humans. We employed DNA quantification and 16S rRNA sequencing as readouts to assess how comparable the information between sample types is.

探究黏液相关微生物群（mucus-associated microbiota）与宿主健康-疾病状态之间的动态关联，是当前重要的研究领域。然而，绝大多数现有研究多聚焦于粪便样本，但这类样本往往无法准确反映黏液相关细菌的群落组成。本研究针对小鼠胃肠道及人类末端回肠中的黏液相关微生物群展开探究，所采用的样本类型如下：小鼠样本包含黏膜灌洗液（mucosal washes）、黏膜刮取物（scraping）与肠内容物（intestinal content）；人类样本则包含活检组织（biopsies）与黏膜灌洗液（mucosal washes）。本研究采用DNA定量与16S rRNA测序作为检测手段，以评估不同样本类型所获信息的可比性。