Analysis of DGGE profiles
RT-PCR-DGGE banding profiles were analysed on the basis of
presence and absence of bands at certain positions in each lane.
Using the program DendroUPGMA (http://genomes.urv.cat/
UPGMA/) [47] a similarity matrix and a resulting dendrogram were constructed using the Pearson coefficient of correlation. The
gel was digitalized and the band intensities evaluated using the
program Bionumerics 7.5 (Applied Maths). In order to analyse the
bacterial community the Simpson index of diversity were calculated
as well as the richness of the community. For each lane the
Simpson index was calculated with D ¼ 1 Ppi2
, where pi represents
the relative intensity of bacterial amount in i. This index of
diversity is weighted towards most abundant species. Values can
range from 0 to 1 and increasing values indicate an increasing diversity.
The number of bands in a lane was defined as the species
richness in this community