High-throughput sequencing with analysis of the resulting nucleotide sequences is widely used to study microbial communities. The most commonly used method for microbial community analysis is amplicon sequencing, which allows the sequencing of parts of specific genes that serve as taxonomic markers, so-called DNA barcodes. The main taxonomic markers used in amplicon sequencing are rRNA genes (16S rDNA for prokaryotes and 18S rDNA and internal transcribed spacers (ITS) for eukaryotes). The method consists of several consecutive steps: DNA isolation, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of parts of specific genes, their sequencing and bioinformatic data processing. Each step in this process can introduce bias, leading to erroneous conclusions, thus a good reference standard is needed. A model microbial community (MC) is a standard with a known species and abundance composition of microbes. A model fungal community consisting of 13 species was prepared in two varieties, from the cells themselves and from isolated DNA. Cell MC was prepared in two further subvarieties, as a mixture where each species was represented with the same number of cells (uniform MC) and as a mixture where the species were represented with different numbers (decimal logarithm values; logarithmic MC). A DNA-based MC was constructed from DNA of purified cultures in which DNA was isolated from a defined number of cells or spores and then pooled. Fungi were cultured, the number of cells determined, a selected number of cells mechanically lysed and DNA isolated. The success of the DNA isolation was examined by electrophoresis and DNA concentration was measured. The ITS2 region, a marker gene for taxonomic identification of fungi, was then amplified by PCR from the cell model fungal community (MFC) and the DNA MFC. The amplified DNA was sequenced, and the data processed. We obtained graphs of the relative abundance of the ASV of each strain within the MC. The presence of some strains was not detected in the final results, and many appeared only in traces. We have successfully prepared MFCs. Not all taxa were detected in all MCs, and species were not represented in the expected ratios. Nevertheless, the prepared MCs can be used as a reference standard in microbial diversity studies with HTS.
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