16S V4 reads from Candidatus Xenohalitois californiensis-exposed and unexposed white abalone
As CaXc primarily infects the gastrointestinal tract, starting at the post-esophagus, 3 different gastrointestinal tract tissues as well as feces were targeted for response to CaXc in this study. CaXc can transfer via feces into a new abalone, and this was used to both experimentally infect naive abalone and as a reason to assess the fecal microbiome after exposure to CaXc. Feces are also the only non-invasive sample collected in this study and allowed an extraordinarily long time series of fecal monitoring for pathogen load and microbial response. At the end of the study, abalone were sacrificed to obtain gastrointestinal tract tissues from the post-esophagus, digestive gland and distal intestine. These samples were sequenced for 16S rRNA V4 region amplicons. The goal of this study was to determine how CaXc exposure impacts both the abalone and its microbiome.