A comparative analysis of the intestinal metagenomes present in guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) and humans (Homo sapiens).

ABSTRACT:

Background

Guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) is an important model for human intestinal research. We have characterized the faecal microbiota of 60 guinea pigs using Illumina shotgun metagenomics, and used this data to compile a gene catalogue of its prevalent microbiota. Subsequently, we compared the guinea pig microbiome to existing human gut metagenome data from the MetaHIT project.

Results

We found that the bacterial richness obtained for human samples was lower than for guinea pig samples. The intestinal microbiotas of both species were dominated by the two phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, but at genus level, the majority of identified genera (320 of 376) were differently abundant in the two hosts. For example, the guinea pig contained considerably more of the mucin-degra

SUBMITTER: Hildebrand F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3472315 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature