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Updated: May 10, 2026

Guided Protocol for Fecal Microbial Characterization by 16S rRNA-Amplicon Sequencing
Published on: March 19, 2018
Diversity of the intestinal microbiota in different patterns of feeding infants by Illumina high-throughput
Wenguang Fan1, Guicheng Huo, Xiaomin Li
1Key Laboratory of Dairy Science, Ministry of Education, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, 150030, China.
Abstract:
The gastrointestinal microbiota plays a crucial role in the health and disease of the host through its impact on nutrition. Gut microbial composition is related to different diets, but an association of microbiota with different diets in infant has not yet been shown. In this work, we compared the fecal microbiota of breast-fed (BF) and formula-fed infants (FF). By using Illumina high-throughput sequencing and biochemical analyses, we found differences in gut microbiota between the two groups. BF infants showed a significant enrichment of Actinobacteria and Firmicutes and depletion of Proteobacteria (P < 0.05), the abundance of Bacteroidetes in the two groups was very low (P > 0.05). Enterobacteriaceae (Proteobacteria) were the dominant bacteria in FF infant fecal microbiota, and Veillonellaceae (Firmicutes) and Enterobacteriaceae (Proteobacteria) were the dominant bacteria in the BF infant fecal microbiota. The number of genera (percentage of sequences >0.1 %) in BF and FF infants was 17 and 15 respectively, and Streptococcus was the dominant bacterial genus in both groups.
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