Rapid bacterial community profiling of equine microbiomes using Oxford Nanopore sequencing
Members of the Horse Microbiome Research Group have recently published a new study in the Journal of Medical Microbiology led by Dr Joy Leng, who is currently undertaking the Alborada Well Foal 2 project. This research aims to understand how the foal gut microbiome develops by investigating the microbiomes of mares and their foals.
Using samples collected during a pilot study, the team successfully profiled the bacterial communities present in equine faeces, saliva, skin and milk by sequencing the full-length 16S rRNA gene with Oxford Nanopore technology. Sequencing was performed in-house using the portable MinION Mk1D platform, providing a rapid, cost-effective workflow with data analysed through Oxford Nanopore's user-friendly EPI2ME software.
The study demonstrated distinct bacterial communities across the different anatomical sites, highlighting the ability of long-read sequencing to generate high-quality microbiome profiles quickly and efficiently.
This work showcases the potential of Oxford Nanopore sequencing as both a research and future clinical tool for rapid bacterial identification and microbiome profiling and provides an important foundation for ongoing studies investigating the equine microbiome.
