Sun Baosheng, Hou Linyue, Yang Yu
Laboratory of Poultry Production, College of Animal Science, Shanxi Agricultural University, Jingzhong, China.
Front Vet Sci. 2021 Jul 2;8:666535. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2021.666535. eCollection 2021.
A long-term observation of changes of the gut microbiota and its metabolites would be beneficial to improving the production performance of chickens. Given this, 1-day-old chickens were chosen in this study, with the aim of observing the development of the gut microbiota and gut microbial function using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metabolites short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) from 8 to 50 weeks. The results showed that the relative abundances of Firmicutes and genus were higher and fiber-degradation bacteria were less at 8 weeks compared with 20 and 50 weeks ( < 0.05). Consistently, gut microbial function was enriched in ATP-binding cassette transporters, the energy metabolism pathway, and amino acid metabolism pathway at 8 weeks. In contrast, the abundance of Bacteroidetes and some SCFA-producing bacteria and fiber-degradation bacteria significantly increased at 20 and 50 weeks compared with 8 weeks ( < 0.05), and the two-component system, glycoside hydrolase and carbohydrate metabolism pathway, was significantly increased with age. The concentration of SCFAs in the cecum at 20 weeks was higher than at 8 weeks ( < 0.01), because the level of fiber and the number of dominant fiber-degradation bacteria and SCFA-producing bacteria were more those at 20 weeks. Notably, although operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and the gut microbial α-diversity including Chao1 and abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE) were higher at 50 than 20 weeks ( < 0.01), the concentration of SCFAs at 50 weeks was lower than at 20 weeks ( < 0.01), suggesting that an overly high level of microbial diversity may not be beneficial to the production of SCFAs.
长期观察肠道微生物群及其代谢产物的变化将有助于提高鸡的生产性能。鉴于此，本研究选择了1日龄的鸡，目的是通过16S rRNA基因测序和8至50周龄的代谢产物短链脂肪酸（SCFAs）来观察肠道微生物群的发育和肠道微生物功能。结果表明，与20周和50周龄相比，8周龄时厚壁菌门和属的相对丰度较高，纤维降解菌较少（P<0.05）。一致地，8周龄时肠道微生物功能在ATP结合盒转运蛋白、能量代谢途径和氨基酸代谢途径中得到富集。相比之下，与8周龄相比，20周和50周龄时拟杆菌门以及一些产生SCFA的细菌和纤维降解菌的丰度显著增加（P<0.05），并且双组分系统、糖苷水解酶和碳水化合物代谢途径随年龄显著增加。20周龄时盲肠中SCFAs的浓度高于8周龄（P<0.01），因为20周龄时纤维水平、优势纤维降解菌和产生SCFA的细菌数量更多。值得注意的是，尽管50周龄时的操作分类单元（OTUs）以及包括Chao1和基于丰度的覆盖度估计器（ACE）在内的肠道微生物α多样性高于20周龄（P<0.01），但50周龄时SCFAs的浓度低于20周龄（P<0.01），这表明过高水平的微生物多样性可能不利于SCFAs的产生。
