ES 024
Study of microbial diversity from samples derived from throat swabs of schizophrenia patients
Throat swabs were obtained from 16 individuals with schizophrenia and 16 controls using standard methods. The throat swabs were frozen at -70 degrees until further processing.  The methods for identification and recruitment of individuals with schizophrenia and controls have been previously described. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Sheppard Pratt Hospital and the Johns Hopkins School of  Medicine. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to enrollment into the study.   DNA was extracted from the samples using Qiagen DNA extraction kits. The extracted DNA was used to generate sequencing libraries. Sequencing libraries were generated from the extracted DNA using the NuGEN Mondrian Workstation and commercially available reagents following the manufacturers instructions (http://www.nugeninc.com/tasks/sites/nugen/assets/File/user_guides/userguide_ov_ultralow_dr_multi_system_1-96.pdf). Briefly, following sonication, the DNA fragments were end repaired and ligated to barcoded adaptors.  Using the adaptors as PCR priming sites and the library was amplified using 15 cycles of amplification .  The samples were purified by chromatography and analyzed by capillary electrophoresis in a Bioanalyzer 2100 to confirm size and concentration. Sequencing libraries were matched one case and one control per flowcell and anonymized until analysis. Sequences were generated using the Illumina HiSeq platform  producing approximately 58 million single-end reads of 100 nucleotides in length per sample.
DNA library
The George Washington University
ES 024