Breyer Gabriela Merker, Carli Silvia De, da Silva Maria Eduarda Rocha Jacques, Dias Maria Eduarda, Varela Ana Paula Muterle, Mann Michele Bertoni, Frazzon Jeverson, Mayer Fabiana Quoos, Junior Itabajara da Silva Vaz, Siqueira Franciele Maboni
Laboratory of Veterinary Bacteriology, Department of Veterinary Pathology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil.
Postgraduate Program in Veterinary Sciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil.
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2025 Feb 22;2025:8865503. doi: 10.1155/tbed/8865503. eCollection 2025.
The high prevalence of enterotoxigenic (ETEC) in nondiarrheic piglets contributes to its rapid spread; however, few studies have explored the effects of latent gastrointestinal pathogens on animal health. Therefore, using high-throughput sequencing approaches, we explored changes in entero-pulmonary microbiota and immune gene expression in healthy, asymptomatic, and diarrheic piglets. As expected, bacterial communities were less diverse in the respiratory tract than in the gut, with a site-specific composition that was more stable in the gut and highly variable in the lung among the investigated animals. Although no significant changes in diversity rates were seen based on ETEC-carrier state, our findings suggest that ETEC's presence can cause dysbiosis in the gut and lung in asymptomatic and diarrheic piglets, reinforcing the crosstalk in the entero-pulmonary axis. We also identified potential bacterial biomarkers that can be used to monitor piglet health: , , , and were highly represented in the gut, while and NK3B31 group were enriched in the lungs of healthy piglets. In addition, most metabolic pathways predicted in the bacterial communities were shared despite the ETEC-carrier state, with differences observed only in the gut microbiota, suggesting that ETEC's presence may impact substrate utilization. Finally, we observed shifts in the intestinal expression of and immune markers between healthy and diarrheic piglets, which might suggest their use as prognostic markers for postweaning diarrhea (PWD). Although the effect remains unclear, the ETEC-carrier state also altered the transcription of other markers locally (in the gut and lung) and systemically, which corroborates the shared mucosal immunity in the entero-pulmonary axis in piglets. Overall, despite limitations regarding sample size, our findings give clues about the entero-pulmonary dynamics in piglets in the presence of a gastrointestinal pathogen, representing a starting point for future research on this axis for veterinary purposes.
产肠毒素大肠杆菌（ETEC）在非腹泻仔猪中的高流行率促使其迅速传播；然而，很少有研究探讨潜伏性胃肠道病原体对动物健康的影响。因此，我们采用高通量测序方法，探究了健康、无症状和腹泻仔猪的肠肺微生物群变化及免疫基因表达。不出所料，呼吸道中的细菌群落多样性低于肠道，其特定部位的组成在肠道中更稳定，在所研究的动物中肺部变化很大。虽然基于ETEC携带状态未观察到多样性率的显著变化，但我们的研究结果表明，ETEC的存在可导致无症状和腹泻仔猪的肠道和肺部菌群失调，加强了肠肺轴中的串扰。我们还鉴定出了可用于监测仔猪健康的潜在细菌生物标志物： 、 、 和 在肠道中高度富集，而 和NK3B31组在健康仔猪的肺部中富集。此外，尽管存在ETEC携带状态，但细菌群落中预测的大多数代谢途径是共享的，仅在肠道微生物群中观察到差异，这表明ETEC的存在可能影响底物利用。最后，我们观察到健康仔猪和腹泻仔猪之间 和 免疫标志物的肠道表达发生了变化，这可能表明它们可作为断奶后腹泻（PWD）的预后标志物。虽然其作用仍不清楚，但ETEC携带状态也局部（在肠道和肺部）和全身改变了其他标志物的转录，这证实了仔猪肠肺轴中共享的黏膜免疫。总体而言尽管样本量存在局限性，但我们的研究结果为存在胃肠道病原体时仔猪的肠肺动态提供了线索，代表了未来出于兽医目的对该轴进行研究的起点。
