V4 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the gut microbiome
HCVi and SVR fecal samples were collected and flash frozen with storage at -80C. PowerSoil DNA Isolation kit (MO BIO, Catalog No. 12888-100) was used to extract total DNA following a modified protocol for DNA extraction from feces. Magnetic bead purification was used in place of column binding purification. The 16S region was amplified from total DNA using primers targeting the V4 region of 16S SSU rRNA (515f-806r). Paired-end sequencing of the 16S amplicons was conducted by the NIDDK Genomics Core on the Illumina MiSeq (2 x 150 bp).