Funding sources

This work was supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme [Grant Agreement No. 874662; HEAP], the Land Tirol and the Eve Appeal charity (www.eveappeal.org.uk).

Individual funding

Magdalena Hagen was supported by the Early Stage Funding from the Vice Rectorate for research of the Universität Innsbruck.

Acknowledgements

We wholeheartedly thank all volunteers for their participation and commitment to our study.

16S rRNA gene amplicon libraries were prepared and sequenced at the Joint Microbiome Facility (JMF) of the Medical University of Vienna and the Univerity of Vienna. We would like to thank Jasmin Schwarz and Joana Séneca Silva for assistance with sample and data processing, respectivly.

We thank Prof. Daniela Schmid, Assoc.-Prof. Gaby Sroczynski, and Prof. Uwe Siebert for critical appraisal and feedback of the study protocol.