Gut microbiota of suckling rats
Microbial DNA in the colon contents of rat pups was extracted using the HiPure Stool DNA Kits. The V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S rDNA gene were amplified using specific primers. Amplicons were purified and quantified. Purified amplicons were pooled in equimolar and paired-end sequenced (PE250) on an Illumina platform according to the standard protocols.