RNF170 and infection: Among the 33 functional genes associated with k-mer hits (Table 2), the largest average effect was observed in the cna gene (OR = 1.67), followed by sei (OR = 1.64), clfB (OR = 1.63), tetM (OR = 1.63), clpL (OR = 1.62), sdrC (OR = 1.57), ebh (OR = 1.57), seu (OR = 1.56), sdrE (OR = 1.55), adsA (OR = 1.54), fnbA (OR = 1.52), and norA (OR = 1.52), indicating the importance of relative abundance of specific k-mers in infection strains.