Cell-based microbiota analyses of murine cecal content regarding dietary vitamin A deficiency.

To investigate the effect of dietary vitamin A deficiency on murine cecal microbiota, using our newly-developed cell-based quantitative method, Barcoding Bacteria for Identification and Quantification (BarBIQ), we surveyed the microbiota of the murine cecum at two locations in C57BL/6J male mice fed with a vitamin A sufficient diet or a vitamin A deficient diet for three weeks. We measured the cells and extracellular DNA in the cecal content respectively. For the cells of all samples, we identified in total 493 cOTUs and counted the number of cells for each cOTU. For the extracellular DNA, we identified 16S rRNA sequences and quantified the number of DNA fragments which contained the 16S rRNA sequences.