Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 2020 Jun 17;86(13). doi: 10.1128/AEM.00562-20.
The gut microbiome has an important role in health, and diet represents a key lever for shaping the gut microbiome across all stages of life. Maternal milk consumption in neonates leads to long-term health effects, indicating that pliability in the infant gut microbiome in response to diet can drive enduring change. The ability of diet to drive lasting changes in the adult gut microbiome is less understood. We studied the effect of an extreme dietary shift on the fecal microbiome of 46 Labrador retriever dogs (mean age, 4.6 years) over 11 months. Dogs were fed a nutritionally complete, commercially available complex diet (CD) for a minimum of 5 weeks, followed by highly purified diets (PDs) for 36 weeks, and the initial CD for at least a further 4 weeks. Fecal samples were collected at regular intervals for DNA extraction. By analyzing 16S rRNA genes and the metagenomes, we observed minor effects on microbial diversity but significant changes in bacterial taxa and genetic potential when a PD was fed. Specifically, metagenomics identified an enrichment of quinone- and GABA-related pathways on PD, providing insights into dietary effects on cross-feeding strategies impacting community structure. When dogs returned to the CD, no significant differences were found with the initial time point. These findings are consistent with the gut microbiome being rapidly adaptable but capable of being reconstituted when provided with similar diets. These data highlight that long-term changes in the adult dog gut microbiome may only be achieved through long-term maintenance on a specified diet, rather than through feeding a transitionary diet. Diet can influence the adult gut microbiome (the community of bacteria) and health outcomes, but the ability to make changes persisting beyond feeding of a particular diet is poorly understood. We investigated whether feeding highly purified diets to adult dogs for 36 weeks would alter bacterial populations sufficiently to result in a persistent change following the dogs' return to a commercial diet. As expected, the microbiome changed when the purified diet was fed, but the original microbiome was reconstituted within weeks of the dogs returning to the commercial diet. The significance of these findings is in identifying an intrinsic stability of the host microbiome in healthy dogs, suggesting that dietary changes to support adult dog health through modifying the gut microbiome may be achieved only through maintenance on a specified diet, rather than through feeding transitionary diets.
肠道微生物群在健康中起着重要作用，而饮食是塑造生命各个阶段肠道微生物群的关键杠杆。新生儿食用母乳会带来长期的健康影响，这表明饮食可以使婴儿肠道微生物群具有柔韧性，从而产生持久的变化。饮食对成人肠道微生物群产生持久变化的能力还不太清楚。我们研究了一种极端饮食变化对 46 只拉布拉多猎犬（平均年龄 4.6 岁）粪便微生物组的影响，历时 11 个月。这些狗至少连续 5 周喂食营养全面的商业复杂饮食（CD），然后喂食 36 周高度纯化饮食（PD），并至少再喂食 4 周初始 CD。定期收集粪便样本进行 DNA 提取。通过分析 16S rRNA 基因和宏基因组，我们观察到微生物多样性的微小影响，但在喂食 PD 时细菌分类群和遗传潜力发生了显著变化。具体来说，宏基因组学鉴定出 PD 上醌和 GABA 相关途径的富集，为饮食对影响群落结构的交叉喂养策略的影响提供了见解。当狗重新开始喂食 CD 时，与初始时间点相比，没有发现显著差异。这些发现与肠道微生物组能够快速适应一致，但在提供类似饮食时能够重新组成。这些数据表明，只有通过长期维持特定饮食，成年犬的肠道微生物组才可能发生长期变化，而不是通过喂食过渡性饮食。饮食可以影响成年肠道微生物组（细菌群落）和健康结果，但饮食改变持续时间超过特定饮食喂养的能力知之甚少。我们研究了向成年犬喂食高度纯化饮食 36 周是否会改变细菌种群，从而导致犬只返回商业饮食后产生持久变化。正如预期的那样，当喂食纯化饮食时，微生物组发生了变化，但在犬只返回商业饮食后的几周内，原始微生物组就得到了重建。这些发现的意义在于，在健康犬中确定了宿主微生物组的内在稳定性，这表明通过改变肠道微生物组来支持成年犬健康的饮食改变可能只能通过维持特定饮食来实现，而不是通过喂食过渡性饮食。
