National Research Center for Wildlife-Borne Diseases, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2018 Feb 22;8:46. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2018.00046. eCollection 2018.
The migration of wild birds plays an important role in the transmission and spread of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, posing a severe risk to animal and human health. Substantial evidence suggests that altered gut microbial community is implicated in the infection of respiratory influenza virus. However, the influence of H5N1 infection in gut microbiota of migratory birds remains unknown. In January 2015, a novel recombinant H5N1 virus emerged and killed about 100 migratory birds, mainly including whooper swans in Sanmenxia Reservoir Area of China. Here, we describe the first fecal microbiome diversity study of H5N1-infected migratory birds. By investigating the influence of H5N1 infection on fecal bacterial communities in infected and uninfected individuals, we found that H5N1 infection shaped the gut microbiota composition by a difference in the dominance of some genera, such as and . We also found a decreased α diversity and increased β diversity in infectious individuals. Our results highlight that increases in changes in pathogen-containing gut communities occur when individuals become infected with H5N1. Our study may provide the first evidence that there are statistical association among H5N1 presence and fecal microbiota compositional shifts, and properties of the fecal microbiota may serve as the risk of gut-linked disease in migrates with H5N1 and further aggravate the disease transmission.
野生鸟类的迁徙在 H5 高致病性禽流感（HPAI）病毒的传播和扩散中起着重要作用，对动物和人类健康构成严重威胁。大量证据表明，肠道微生物群落的改变与呼吸道流感病毒的感染有关。然而，H5N1 感染对候鸟肠道微生物群的影响尚不清楚。2015 年 1 月，一种新型重组 H5N1 病毒出现并导致约 100 只候鸟死亡，主要包括中国三门峡水库的大天鹅。在这里，我们描述了首例 H5N1 感染候鸟的粪便微生物组多样性研究。通过调查 H5N1 感染对感染和未感染个体粪便细菌群落的影响，我们发现 H5N1 感染通过一些属的优势度差异塑造了肠道微生物群落的组成，例如 和 。我们还发现感染个体的α多样性降低和β多样性增加。我们的研究结果表明，当个体感染 H5N1 时，携带病原体的肠道群落的变化会增加。我们的研究可能首次提供了证据，表明 H5N1 的存在与粪便微生物群落组成的变化之间存在统计学关联，粪便微生物群落的特性可能是候鸟携带 H5N1 时肠道相关疾病的风险因素，并进一步加剧疾病传播。
