Longitudinal and multisite characterization of the skin microbiota of healthy horses

The objectives of this study were to describe the cutaneous bacterial microbiota in healthy horses and to evaluate the effect of body site, individual and season on taxonomic distributions, as well as alpha and beta diversity using high throughput sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. A total of 192 skin samples were collected from 12 horses at four time points (February, May, August and November 2019) from four body sites (abdomen, dorsum, groin, pastern).

本研究旨在描述健康马匹的皮肤细菌微生物群（cutaneous bacterial microbiota），并通过16S rRNA基因V4区的高通量测序（high throughput sequencing）评估身体部位、个体及季节对分类学分布（taxonomic distributions）以及α和β多样性（alpha and beta diversity）的影响。研究共从12匹马的4个身体部位（腹部、背部、腹股沟、系部）在4个时间点（2019年2月、5月、8月及11月）采集了192份皮肤样本。