Pangga Gladys Maria, Star-Shirko Banaz, Psifidi Androniki, Xia Dong, Corcionivoschi Nicolae, Kelly Carmel, Hughes Callie, Lavery Ursula, Richmond Anne, Ijaz Umer Zeeshan, Gundogdu Ozan
Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
Royal Veterinary College, London, UK.
Microbiome. 2025 Jan 29;13(1):30. doi: 10.1186/s40168-024-02012-7.
Maintaining gut health is a persistent and unresolved challenge in the poultry industry. Given the critical role of gut health in chicken performance and welfare, there is a pressing need to identify effective gut health intervention (GHI) strategies to ensure optimal outcomes in poultry farming. In this study, across three broiler production cycles, we compared the metagenomes and performance of broilers provided with ionophores (as the control group) against birds subjected to five different GHI combinations involving vaccination, probiotics, prebiotics, essential oils, and reduction of ionophore use.
Using a binning strategy, 84 (≥ 75% completeness, ≤ 5% contamination) metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from 118 caecal samples were recovered and annotated for their metabolic potential. The majority of these (n = 52, 61%) had a differential response across all cohorts and are associated with the performance parameter - European poultry efficiency factor (EPEF). The control group exhibited the highest EPEF, followed closely by the cohort where probiotics are used in conjunction with vaccination. The use of probiotics B, a commercial Bacillus strain-based formulation, was determined to contribute to the superior performance of birds. GHI supplementation generally affected the abundance of microbial enzymes relating to carbohydrate and protein digestion and metabolic pathways relating to energy, nucleotide synthesis, short-chain fatty acid synthesis, and drug-transport systems. These shifts are hypothesised to differentiate performance among groups and cycles, highlighting the beneficial role of several bacteria, including Rikenella microfusus and UBA7160 species.
All GHIs are shown to be effective methods for gut microbial modulation, with varying influences on MAG diversity, composition, and microbial functions. These metagenomic insights greatly enhance our understanding of microbiota-related metabolic pathways, enabling us to devise strategies against enteric pathogens related to poultry products and presenting new opportunities to improve overall poultry performance and health. Video Abstract.
维持肠道健康是家禽养殖业中一个长期存在且尚未解决的挑战。鉴于肠道健康对鸡的生产性能和福利起着关键作用，迫切需要确定有效的肠道健康干预（GHI）策略，以确保家禽养殖获得最佳效益。在本研究中，我们在三个肉鸡生产周期内，将使用离子载体的肉鸡（作为对照组）的宏基因组和生产性能，与接受五种不同GHI组合（包括疫苗接种、益生菌、益生元、精油和减少离子载体使用）的肉鸡进行了比较。
采用分箱策略，从118份盲肠样本中获得了84个（完整性≥75%，污染率≤5%）宏基因组组装基因组（MAG），并对其代谢潜力进行了注释。其中大多数（n = 52，61%）在所有组中表现出不同的反应，并且与生产性能参数——欧洲家禽生产效率因子（EPEF）相关。对照组的EPEF最高，紧随其后的是同时使用益生菌和疫苗接种的组。已确定使用益生菌B（一种基于商业芽孢杆菌菌株的制剂）有助于提高鸡的生产性能。GHI添加通常会影响与碳水化合物和蛋白质消化相关的微生物酶的丰度，以及与能量、核苷酸合成、短链脂肪酸合成和药物转运系统相关的代谢途径。据推测，这些变化导致了不同组和周期之间生产性能的差异，突出了包括微小理研菌和UBA7160菌属在内的几种细菌的有益作用。
所有GHI方法均被证明是调节肠道微生物群的有效方法，对MAG多样性、组成和微生物功能有不同影响。这些宏基因组学见解极大地增进了我们对微生物群相关代谢途径的理解，使我们能够制定针对与家禽产品相关的肠道病原体的策略，并为提高家禽整体生产性能和健康状况提供了新机会。视频摘要。
