Bos taurus Metagenome
Analysing the somatic cell count (SCC) together with the microbiota composition in colostrum can be useful for monitoring udder health immediately after parturition. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the bacterial community in the colostrum of Simmental cows, and to assess whether the bacterial diversity and composition related to the SCC at the udder quarter level. Colostrum was aseptically collected separately for each udder quarter from 16 cows. The SCC was determined immediately after milking. The DNA was extracted from the defatted colostrum samples using a commercial kit and sequenced using Illumina chemistry. The V3-V4 hypervariable regions of bacterial 16S rRNA gene were amplified using a 250 bp read length paired-end protocol (Microsynth AG) on an Illumina NextSeq platform, including the library preparation (NEBNext DNA Library Prep Kit) and sequencing.