Bacterial topography of the respiratory tract in pigs

Understanding the complex interactions and structure of the bacterial communities inhabiting the upper (URT) and lower (LRT) respiratory tract of pigs is at its early stage. We characterize the bacterial topography of URT (anterior nostrils, posterior nostrils, and palatine tonsils) and LRT (proximal trachea, bronchial mucosa, and caudal left lung lobe) samples collected post-mortem from six pigs. All samples were analysed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and samples from anterior nostrils and trachea were additionally profiled by shotgun sequencing.