Waltham Petcare Science Institute, Freeby Lane, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, LE14 4RT, UK.
Sci Rep. 2024 Aug 29;14(1):20104. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-63999-5.
Furthering our knowledge of the skin microbiome is essential to understand health and disease in canines. To date, studies into the canine skin microbiome have focused on 16S rRNA high throughput sequencing however, these lack the granularity of species and strain level taxonomic characterisation and their associated functions. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the skin microbiome by analysing the skin microbiome of 72 healthy adult colony dogs, across four distinct skin sites and four breeds, using metagenomic sequencing. Our analysis revealed that breed and skin site are drivers of variation, and a core group of taxa and genes are present within the skin microbiome of healthy dogs, comprising 230 taxa and 1219 gene families. We identified 15 species within the core microbiome that are represented by more than one strain. The biosynthesis of secondary metabolites pathway was enriched in the core microbiome suggesting the skin microbiome may play a role in colonisation resistance and protection from invading pathogens. Additionally, we uncovered the novelty of the canine skin microbiome and show that further investigation is required to increase the suitability of current databases for metagenomic sequencing of canine skin samples.
进一步了解皮肤微生物组对于理解犬类的健康和疾病至关重要。迄今为止，对犬皮肤微生物组的研究主要集中在 16S rRNA 高通量测序上，然而，这些研究缺乏物种和菌株水平的分类特征及其相关功能的粒度。本研究旨在通过对 72 只健康成年犬的四个不同皮肤部位和四个品种的皮肤微生物组进行宏基因组测序，全面评估皮肤微生物组。我们的分析表明，品种和皮肤部位是变异的驱动因素，健康犬的皮肤微生物组中存在一个核心的菌群和基因群，包括 230 个分类群和 1219 个基因家族。我们在核心微生物组中鉴定出了 15 个由多个菌株代表的物种。次生代谢物生物合成途径在核心微生物组中富集，这表明皮肤微生物组可能在定植抵抗和抵御入侵病原体方面发挥作用。此外，我们揭示了犬皮肤微生物组的新颖性，并表明需要进一步研究以提高当前数据库对犬皮肤样本宏基因组测序的适用性。
