DGGE. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of
16S rRNA gene fragments was performed using a D-Code System (Bio-
Rad) as described previously (17), with a gradient of 40 to 60%, except gels
were silver stained as described elsewhere (20). DGGE of the fungal ITS
region was performed as described above except that the denaturing gradient
was 30 to 70%. Selected DGGE bands were excised and placed into
100 l of nuclease-free water for storage at 4°C. DGGE bands were reamplified
using either F341 and R534 primers for bacterial DNA or ITS3 and
ITS4 primers for fungal DNA, purified using the GenElute PCR Clean-Up
kit (Sigma-Aldrich), and sequenced by GATC Biotech (Germany). The
sequences obtained were compared with public DNA database sequences
using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST).