Validation of Differentiable Molecular Barcodes as Reference Spike-in Oligonucleotides for Microbiome Studies

A shortcoming in microbiome research is the lack of reference standards to control biases introduced by differential DNA extractability, interference with amplification, library preparation, next-generation sequencing platforms, and data analysis. The aim of this research is to develop and test novel molecular barcodes for use as spike-in reference standards in the form of oligonucleotides or recombinants in microbiome studies.