Resulting data were subjected to quality control steps, and analyzed for bacterial community richness and diversity, withinâ and betweenâgroup dissimilarity, and relative taxonomic composition.
Highâquality reads (2.22 million bp) resulted in a mean of 159 068 sequences per sample.
Bacterial community evenness and diversity was high when compared to other species, and did not significantly differ when samples were grouped by dogs or eyes.
As expected, withinâdog samples were more similar than betweenâdog samples.
Taxonomic classification revealed that >95% of the community consisted of Firmicutes (34.9 ± 8.8%), Actinobacteria (26.3 ± 7.1%), Proteobacteria (26.2 ± 6.6%), and Bacteroidetes (9.4 ± 2.4%).
Key members of the dog ocular surface microbiome, found in all dogs and corresponding to >25% of all identified OTUs (operational taxonomic units), were part of the Bifidobacteriaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Moraxellaceae, Corynebacteriaceae families.
Genera previously thought to account for the majority of the core ocular surface microbiome in the dog (Staphylococcus sp., Streptococcus sp., and Bacillus sp.) were associated with only 2.63% of overall reads.
This study shows the feasibility of conjunctival swabs and highâthroughput sequencing to profile the bacterial community structure of the canine ocular surface.
A core ocular surface microbiome was identified for this canine population.
Source: Marina L. Leis Matheus O. Costa, Initial description of the core ocular surface microbiome in dogs: Bacterial community diversity and composition in a defined canine population . VOP, Early View. First published: 10 August 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/vop.12599
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