The primer sequences used to amplify the three regions of the 16S rRNA gene and their homology to the 16S rRNA gene sequences represented in the mock community.

a“F” corresponds to the forward PCR primer and “R” corresponds to the reverse PCR primer.bM. smithii (2 operons) had very low homology to all three primer pairs and is not depicted here.cAll primers are written in the 5′ to 3′ orientation. The complete primers were synthesized to have a barcode and adapter primer at the 5′ end of the reverse primer and an adapter primer at the 5′ end of the forward primer. Sequencing was performed using the adapter downstream of the reverse primer.