Assessment of Inter-Laboratory Variation in the Characterization and Analysis of the Mucosal Microbiota in Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

BACKGROUND: In studies evaluating the microbiome, numerous factors can contribute to technical variability. These factors include DNA extraction methodology, sequencing protocols, and data analysis strategies. We sought to evaluate the impact these factors have on the results obtained when the sequence data are independently generated and analyzed by different laboratories. METHODS: To evaluate the effect of technical variability, we used human …