Xing Jingya, Liu Guiqin, Zhang Xinzhuang, Bai Dongyi, Yu Jie, Li Lanjie, Wang Xisheng, Su Shaofeng, Zhao Yiping, Bou Gerelchimeg, Dugarjaviin Manglai
Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Equine Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, College of Animal Science, Equine Research Center, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China.
College of Agronomy, Shandong Engineering Technology Research Center for Efficient Breeding and Ecological Feeding of Black Donkey, Shandong Donkey Industry Technology Collaborative Innovation Center, Liaocheng University, Liaocheng, China.
Front Microbiol. 2020 Dec 3;11:596394. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.596394. eCollection 2020.
The community of microorganisms inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract of monogastric herbivores played critical roles in the absorption of nutrients and keeping the host healthy. However, its establishment at different age groups has not been quantitatively and functionally examined. The knowledge of microbial colonization and its function in the intestinal tract of different-age donkeys is still limited. By applying the V3-V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and functional prediction on fecal samples from different-age donkeys, we characterized the gut microbiota during the different age groups. In contrast to the adult donkeys, the gut microbiota diversity and richness of the young donkeys showed significantly less resemblance. The microbial data showed that diversity and richness increased with age, but a highly individual variation of microbial composition was observed at month 1. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) revealed a significant difference across five time points in the feces. The abundance of , , and tended to decrease, while the proportion of was significantly increased with age. For functional prediction, the relative abundance of pathways had a significant difference in the feces across different age groups, for example, Terpenoids and Polyketides and Folding, Sorting, and Degradation ( < 0.05 or < 0.01). The analysis of beta diversity (PCoA and LEfSe) and microbial functions predicted with PICRUSt (NSTIs) clearly divided the donkeys into foals (≤3 months old) and adults (≥7 months old). Microbial community composition and structure had distinctive features at each age group, in accordance with functional stability of the microbiota. Our findings established a framework for understanding the composition and function of the fecal microbiota to differ between young and adult donkeys.
栖息于单胃草食动物胃肠道的微生物群落，在营养物质吸收和维持宿主健康方面发挥着关键作用。然而，其在不同年龄组的建立情况尚未得到定量和功能方面的研究。关于不同年龄的驴肠道中微生物定植及其功能的知识仍然有限。通过对不同年龄驴的粪便样本应用细菌16S rRNA基因的V3 - V4区域并进行功能预测，我们对不同年龄组的肠道微生物群进行了表征。与成年驴相比，幼龄驴的肠道微生物群多样性和丰富度显示出明显较低的相似性。微生物数据表明，多样性和丰富度随年龄增加，但在1月龄时观察到微生物组成存在高度个体差异。主坐标分析（PCoA）显示粪便中五个时间点存在显著差异。 、 和 的丰度趋于下降，而 的比例随年龄显著增加。对于功能预测，不同年龄组粪便中代谢途径的相对丰度存在显著差异，例如萜类和聚酮类以及折叠、分选和降解（ < 0.05或 < 0.01）。β多样性分析（PCoA和LEfSe）以及用PICRUSt（NSTIs）预测的微生物功能清楚地将驴分为幼驹（≤3月龄）和成年驴（≥7月龄）。根据微生物群的功能稳定性，每个年龄组的微生物群落组成和结构都有独特的特征。我们的研究结果为理解幼龄和成年驴粪便微生物群的组成和功能差异建立了一个框架。
