Mucosal washes are useful for sampling intestine mucus-associated microbiota despite low biomass

Investigating the dynamic relationship between mucus-associated microbiota and host health-disease is an important research area. However, most studies focus on stool samples, which may not capture the composition of mucus-associated bacteria. In our research, we explore mucus-associated microbiota in the gastrointestinal tract of mice and the terminal ileum in humans, using three different sample types named: mucosal washes, scraping, and intestinal content in mice and biopsies and mucosal washes in humans. We employed DNA quantification and 16S rRNA sequencing as readouts to assess how comparable the information between sample types is.