The beef cattle vaginal microbiota in relation to breeding and pregnancy

The aim of this study was to characterize the vaginal microbiota of beef cattle in relation to breeding and pregnancy and compare that of cattle who were successfully bred versus those who were not. A total of 35 cattle were used for this study. Vaginal swabs were collected roughly three weeks apart from 10/2021 to 2/2022, resulting in samples collected from seven timepoints. The DNA was extracted from the vaginal swabs and the 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform.