title: The cheese smear of a Swiss semi-hard red-smear cheese variety was analyzed for comparison of the microbial surface smear community patterns of cheeses differing in their smear quality.
design: Total RNA was extracted from cheese surface smear samples applying the protocol described by Monnet and colleagues and converted to cDNA.  Subsequently the cDNA was sheared and the region corresponding to the 16S rRNA was selectively enriched by a set-up called vectorette, using the universal primer U515F as specific primer and 13 cycles of amplification. After size selection (about 600bp) the libraries were sequenced using GS FLX Titanium chemistry on a 454 genome sequencer FLX platform (Roche Diagnostics Ltd., Burgess Hill, West Sussex, United Kingdom) according to Roche 454 protocols.