16S V3-V4 -based microbial profiling of stool, skin and saliva samples of patients affected by systemic sclerosis (SSc)

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex and still unclear rare disease associated with fibrosis in multiple organs. Microbiota has recently emerged as an important environmental factor in SSc pathogenesis, either at gut, oral and skin level. Overall design: DNA extraction from stool, skin and saliva samples collected from 26 patients affected by SSc, generatoin of amplicons of the variable V3–V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and paired-end sequencing (2?×?300 cycles) on the Illumina MiSeq platform.