Fig. 4

Evaluation of Cas-16S-seq using paddy soil samples. Three biological replicates per gRNA were performed to compare the Cas-16S-seq (Cas9+) and regular 16S-seq (Cas9−) for 799F-1193R and 515F-806R amplicons. The 799F-1193R amplicons were digested using mt-gRNA1048, mt-gRNA1171, or mt-gRNA1196 (a, b); the 515F-806R amplicons were digested with two gRNAs (mt-gRNA780 and cp-gRNA578, c, d). The OTU tables were rarefied to 16,000 sequences. a, c The observed OTUs (average relative abundance per sample > 2e−4) were highly consistent between Cas-16S-seq and regular 16S-seq results for each sample. The boxplots show the number of OTUs detected by both methods (Cas9+ & Cas9−, colored in green), by Cas-16S-seq only (Cas9+, colored in blue) and by regular 16S-seq only (Cas9−, colored in red). b, d The abundances of observed OTUs are highly consistent between Cas-16S-seq (log₂(Abund) Ca9+) and regular 16S-seq (log₂(Abund) Cas9−) data in all comparisons. The OTU abundances were log₂ transformed. The correlation coefficients (R) for each comparison are shown at the bottom. The different biological replicates are indicated by color