Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
Department of Biological Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Mar 1;13(3):e0191029. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191029. eCollection 2018.
Probiotics are live microbial feed supplements that promote growth and health to the host by minimizing non-essential and pathogenic microorganisms in the host's gastrointestinal tract (GIT). The campaign to minimize excessive use of antibiotics in poultry production has necessitated development of probiotics with broad application in multiple poultry species. Design of such probiotics requires understanding of the diversity or similarity in microbial profiles among avian species of economic importance. Therefore, the objective of this research was to establish and compare the microbial profiles of the GIT of Guinea fowl and chicken and to establish the microbial diversity or similarity between the two avian species. A metagenomic approach consisting of the amplification and sequence analysis of the hypervariable regions V1-V9 of the 16S rRNA gene was used to identify the GIT microbes. Collectively, we detected more than 150 microbial families. The total number of microbial species detected in the chicken GIT was higher than that found in the Guinea Fowl GIT. Our studies also revealed phylogenetic diversity among the microbial species found in chicken and guinea fowl. The phylum Firmicutes was most abundant in both avian species whereas Phylum Actinobacteria was most abundant in chickens than Guinea fowls. The diversity of the microbial profiles found in broiler chickens and Guinea fowls suggest that the design of effective avian probiotics would require species specificity.
益生菌是活的微生物饲料添加剂，通过最大限度地减少宿主胃肠道（GIT）中非必需和病原微生物，促进宿主的生长和健康。减少家禽生产中抗生素过度使用的运动，需要开发在多种家禽物种中具有广泛应用的益生菌。此类益生菌的设计需要了解经济重要的禽类物种之间微生物谱的多样性或相似性。因此，本研究的目的是建立和比较珍珠鸡和鸡的 GIT 微生物谱，并确定这两种禽类之间的微生物多样性或相似性。使用包含 16S rRNA 基因的高变区 V1-V9 的扩增和序列分析的宏基因组学方法来鉴定 GIT 微生物。我们总共检测到了 150 多种微生物家族。在鸡 GIT 中检测到的微生物种类总数高于在珍珠鸡 GIT 中发现的微生物种类总数。我们的研究还揭示了在鸡和珍珠鸡中发现的微生物种类之间的系统发育多样性。厚壁菌门在两种禽类中都最为丰富，而放线菌门在鸡中比珍珠鸡更为丰富。肉鸡和珍珠鸡的微生物谱多样性表明，有效的禽用益生菌的设计需要具有物种特异性。
