High-throughput qPCR and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing as complementary methods for the investigation of the cheese microbiota. 2022

Matthias Dreier, and Marco Meola, and Hélène Berthoud, and Noam Shani, and Daniel Wechsler, and Pilar Junier
Agroscope, Schwarzenburgstrasse 161, CH-3003, Bern, Switzerland. matthias.dreier@agroscope.admin.ch.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods and especially 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing have become indispensable tools in microbial ecology. While they have opened up new possibilities for studying microbial communities, they also have one drawback, namely providing only relative abundances and thus compositional data. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) has been used for years for the quantification of bacteria. However, this method requires the development of specific primers and has a low throughput. The constraint of low throughput has recently been overcome by the development of high-throughput qPCR (HT-qPCR), which allows for the simultaneous detection of the most prevalent bacteria in moderately complex systems, such as cheese and other fermented dairy foods. In the present study, the performance of the two approaches, NGS and HT-qPCR, was compared by analyzing the same DNA samples from 21 Raclette du Valais protected designation of origin (PDO) cheeses. Based on the results obtained, the differences, accuracy, and usefulness of the two approaches were studied in detail. The results obtained using NGS (non-targeted) and HT-qPCR (targeted) show considerable agreement in determining the microbial composition of the cheese DNA samples studied, albeit the fundamentally different nature of these two approaches. A few inconsistencies in species detection were observed, particularly for less abundant ones. The detailed comparison of the results for 15 bacterial species/groups measured by both methods revealed a considerable bias for certain bacterial species in the measurements of the amplicon sequencing approach. We identified as probable origin to this PCR bias due to primer mismatches, variations in the number of copies for the 16S rRNA gene, and bias introduced in the bioinformatics analysis. As the normalized microbial composition results of NGS and HT-qPCR agreed for most of the 21 cheese samples analyzed, both methods can be considered as complementary and reliable for studying the microbial composition of cheese. Their combined application proved to be very helpful in identifying potential biases and overcoming methodological limitations in the quantitative analysis of the cheese microbiota.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D002611 Cheese A nutritious food consisting primarily of the curd or the semisolid substance formed when milk coagulates. Cheeses
D004269 DNA, Bacterial Deoxyribonucleic acid that makes up the genetic material of bacteria. Bacterial DNA
D001419 Bacteria One of the three domains of life (the others being Eukarya and ARCHAEA), also called Eubacteria. They are unicellular prokaryotic microorganisms which generally possess rigid cell walls, multiply by cell division, and exhibit three principal forms: round or coccal, rodlike or bacillary, and spiral or spirochetal. Bacteria can be classified by their response to OXYGEN: aerobic, anaerobic, or facultatively anaerobic; by the mode by which they obtain their energy: chemotrophy (via chemical reaction) or PHOTOTROPHY (via light reaction); for chemotrophs by their source of chemical energy: CHEMOLITHOTROPHY (from inorganic compounds) or chemoorganotrophy (from organic compounds); and by their source for CARBON; NITROGEN; etc.; HETEROTROPHY (from organic sources) or AUTOTROPHY (from CARBON DIOXIDE). They can also be classified by whether or not they stain (based on the structure of their CELL WALLS) with CRYSTAL VIOLET dye: gram-negative or gram-positive. Eubacteria
D012336 RNA, Ribosomal, 16S Constituent of 30S subunit prokaryotic ribosomes containing 1600 nucleotides and 21 proteins. 16S rRNA is involved in initiation of polypeptide synthesis. 16S Ribosomal RNA,16S rRNA,RNA, 16S Ribosomal,Ribosomal RNA, 16S,rRNA, 16S
D017422 Sequence Analysis, DNA A multistage process that includes cloning, physical mapping, subcloning, determination of the DNA SEQUENCE, and information analysis. DNA Sequence Analysis,Sequence Determination, DNA,Analysis, DNA Sequence,DNA Sequence Determination,DNA Sequence Determinations,DNA Sequencing,Determination, DNA Sequence,Determinations, DNA Sequence,Sequence Determinations, DNA,Analyses, DNA Sequence,DNA Sequence Analyses,Sequence Analyses, DNA,Sequencing, DNA
D057166 High-Throughput Screening Assays Rapid methods of measuring the effects of an agent in a biological or chemical assay. The assay usually involves some form of automation or a way to conduct multiple assays at the same time using sample arrays. High-Throughput Screening,High-Throughput Biological Assays,High-Throughput Chemical Assays,High-Throughput Screening Methods,Assay, High-Throughput Biological,Assay, High-Throughput Chemical,Assay, High-Throughput Screening,Biological Assay, High-Throughput,Chemical Assay, High-Throughput,High Throughput Biological Assays,High Throughput Chemical Assays,High Throughput Screening,High Throughput Screening Assays,High Throughput Screening Methods,High-Throughput Biological Assay,High-Throughput Chemical Assay,High-Throughput Screening Assay,High-Throughput Screening Method,High-Throughput Screenings,Screening Assay, High-Throughput,Screening Method, High-Throughput,Screening, High-Throughput
D059014 High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing Techniques of nucleotide sequence analysis that increase the range, complexity, sensitivity, and accuracy of results by greatly increasing the scale of operations and thus the number of nucleotides, and the number of copies of each nucleotide sequenced. The sequencing may be done by analysis of the synthesis or ligation products, hybridization to preexisting sequences, etc. High-Throughput Sequencing,Illumina Sequencing,Ion Proton Sequencing,Ion Torrent Sequencing,Next-Generation Sequencing,Deep Sequencing,High-Throughput DNA Sequencing,High-Throughput RNA Sequencing,Massively-Parallel Sequencing,Pyrosequencing,DNA Sequencing, High-Throughput,High Throughput DNA Sequencing,High Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing,High Throughput RNA Sequencing,High Throughput Sequencing,Massively Parallel Sequencing,Next Generation Sequencing,Nucleotide Sequencing, High-Throughput,RNA Sequencing, High-Throughput,Sequencing, Deep,Sequencing, High-Throughput,Sequencing, High-Throughput DNA,Sequencing, High-Throughput Nucleotide,Sequencing, High-Throughput RNA,Sequencing, Illumina,Sequencing, Ion Proton,Sequencing, Ion Torrent,Sequencing, Massively-Parallel,Sequencing, Next-Generation
D060888 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Methods used for detecting the amplified DNA products from the polymerase chain reaction as they accumulate instead of at the end of the reaction. Kinetic Polymerase Chain Reaction,Quantitative Real-Time PCR,Quantitative Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction,Real-Time PCR,PCR, Quantitative Real-Time,PCR, Real-Time,PCRs, Quantitative Real-Time,PCRs, Real-Time,Quantitative Real Time PCR,Quantitative Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction,Quantitative Real-Time PCRs,Real Time PCR,Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction,Real-Time PCR, Quantitative,Real-Time PCRs,Real-Time PCRs, Quantitative
D019295 Computational Biology A field of biology concerned with the development of techniques for the collection and manipulation of biological data, and the use of such data to make biological discoveries or predictions. This field encompasses all computational methods and theories for solving biological problems including manipulation of models and datasets. Bioinformatics,Molecular Biology, Computational,Bio-Informatics,Biology, Computational,Computational Molecular Biology,Bio Informatics,Bio-Informatic,Bioinformatic,Biologies, Computational Molecular,Biology, Computational Molecular,Computational Molecular Biologies,Molecular Biologies, Computational
D064307 Microbiota The full collection of microbes (bacteria, fungi, virus, etc.) that naturally exist within a particular biological niche such as an organism, soil, a body of water, etc. Human Microbiome,Microbiome,Microbiome, Human,Microbial Community,Microbial Community Composition,Microbial Community Structure,Community Composition, Microbial,Community Structure, Microbial,Community, Microbial,Composition, Microbial Community,Human Microbiomes,Microbial Communities,Microbial Community Compositions,Microbial Community Structures,Microbiomes,Microbiotas

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