Inferring Virio-related microbial interactions and validating virulence factors of candidate pathogens in the gut of shrimp

In this study, we investigated the healthy and diseased adult shrimp. Shrimp samples were collected from identically managed ponds. The samples were studied using high throughput sequencing approach. The objectives of this study were to: (I) research the bacterial community structure of healthy and diseased shrimp intestines; (II) screen dominant family that contribute differences among healthy and diseased shrimp categories; (III) infer interspecies interaction of core candidate pathogens in healthy and diseased shrimp intestines, and further explore fragmentation pattern as the relative fraction of disconnected compartments within a co-occurrence network as a basic descriptor of network topology; and (IV) validate virulence factors of core candidate pathogens using polymerase chain reaction (PCR).