Samples from the cecum were taken at the time of sacrifice and bacterial DNA was extracted with the powersoil DNA isolation kit (MoBio) according to manufacturers instructions. SYBR green-based qPCR was performed using universal eubacterial primers that have been previously published and characterized2462. PCR cycling was carried out in the same manner as in qPCR from brain tissue. Fold change in total bacterial load was calculated by normalizing to DNA content as described previously24.
