16S rRNA characterization of mouse intestinal contents to compare gut locations, platform, and primers

The gut microbiota of ten eight week old individually-housed chow-fed C57/Bl6J mice was characterized to determine (1) how gut bacterial communities differ along the length of the gut (small intestine, cecum, distal large intestine, and feces) (2) if different sequencing platforms (454, Illumina, and Ion PGM) give comparable results with the same samples (3) and whether or not different primers give comparable results with the same samples.