title: Statistical differences between relative quantitative molecular fingerprints from microbial communities.
abstract: Molecular fingerprints of microbial communities are a common method for the analysis and comparison of environmental samples. The significance of differences between microbial community fingerprints was analyzed considering the presence of different phylotypes and their relative abundance. A method is proposed by simulating coverage of the analyzed communities as a function of sampling size applying a Cramér-von Mises statistic. Comparisons were performed by a Monte Carlo testing procedure. As an example, this procedure was used to compare several sediment samples from freshwater ponds using a relative quantitative PCR-DGGE profiling technique. The method was able to discriminate among different samples based on their molecular fingerprints, and confirmed the lack of differences between aliquots from a single sample.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiologia, CSIC, Avda. Reina Mercedes 10, 41012 Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Portillo
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000379:methods*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D005618:Fresh Water / Q000382:microbiology*; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000382:microbiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial