An inter-laboratory study to investigate the impact of the bioinformatics component on microbiome analysis using mock communities.

Despite the advent of whole genome metagenomics, targeted approaches (such as 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing) continue to be valuable for determining the microbial composition of samples. Amplicon microbiome sequencing can be performed on clinical samples from a normally sterile site to determine the aetiology of an infection (usually single pathogen identification) or samples from more complex niches such as human mucosa or environmental samples where multiple microorganisms need to be identified. The methodologies are frequently applied to determine both presence of micro-organisms and their quantity or relative abundance.