Effect of Echinacea on gut microbiota of immunosuppressed ducks.

INTRODUCTION

Immunosuppression puts animals in a susceptible state and disrupts the balance of intestinal flora, which can increase the risk of disease and cause serious harm to the farm. Echinacea can exert its immunomodulatory effect in various ways, but its influence on intestinal flora is unclear.

METHODS

Therefore, we investigated the effect of Echinacea extract (EE) on gut microbiota in immunosuppressed ducks by 16s-RNA sequencing in this experiment.

RESULTS

The results showed that EE significantly improved the weight gain of immunosuppressed ducks (<0.001). It also increased the immune organ index (<0.01) and upregulated the levels of TNF-α and IFN-γ (<0.05) as well as IL-2 in the serum. The lesions of the bursa were evident compared to the spleen and thymus. After treatment in the EE group, the lymphocyte count of the bursa returned to healthy levels and the lesions were significantly improved. The diversity analysis showed that neither of the alpha-diversity indices showed a significant difference (>0.05). However, the EE group had a trend closer to the healthy group compared to the M group. β-diversity analysis revealed a high degree of sample separation between the healthy and immunosuppressed groups. The sequencing result showed a significantly higher relative abundance of and in the dexamethasone-treated group, which could be potential biomarkers of dexamethasone-induced immunosuppression. EE increased the relative abundance of , , and and significantly decreased the relative abundance of , , and (<0.05).

CONCLUSION

The results showed that Echinacea extract improves the development of immunosuppressed ducks and modulates intestinal immune function by increasing the abundance of beneficial bacterial genera in the intestine.