Zhu Guangxiang, Song Huina, Duan Mingwen, Wang Ji, Luo Jingxue, Yang Shijun, Wu Fei, Jiang Jiuyan, Chen Ji, Tang Wenjiao
College of Life Science, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China.
Front Microbiol. 2025 May 21;16:1559646. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1559646. eCollection 2025.
The gut microbiota is an emerging frontier in animal research, and researchers are increasingly transparent about its importance to animal health. Reptiles, particularly snakes, have not received the same attention given to other vertebrates, and the composition of their wild gut microbiome remains understudied.
In this study, the HiSeq high-throughput sequencing platform was used to sequence and analyze the 16S rRNA V4 region of the gut microbiota of three species (, , ).
This study investigated alpha diversity analysis and showed that the gut microbiota richness of RP was significantly higher than that of the other two snakes. The dominant genus of (GC) and (RT) is , while Enterobacteriaceae; is the dominant genus of (RP). Tree clustering based on Bray-Curtis distances and Jaccard similarity coefficients indicated that the gut microbiota composition of and was more similar. The unique diet of RP promotes a diverse, competitive gut microbiota, while GC and RT displayed more stable networks linked to shared dietary habits. The functional heat map showed that the predicted functions of the gut microbes of the three snake species were different. These findings suggest that dietary preferences exert a stronger influence on gut microbial composition and function than host genetic background, and distantly related species with similar diets exhibit convergent gut microbiota characteristics.
肠道微生物群是动物研究中一个新兴的前沿领域，研究人员越来越清楚地认识到其对动物健康的重要性。爬行动物，尤其是蛇类，尚未受到与其他脊椎动物相同的关注，其野生肠道微生物组的组成仍未得到充分研究。
在本研究中，使用HiSeq高通量测序平台对三种蛇（，，）肠道微生物群的16S rRNA V4区域进行测序和分析。
本研究进行了α多样性分析，结果表明RP的肠道微生物群丰富度显著高于其他两种蛇。（GC）和（RT）的优势菌属是，而肠杆菌科；是（RP）的优势菌属。基于Bray-Curtis距离和Jaccard相似系数的树形聚类表明，和的肠道微生物群组成更相似。RP独特的饮食促进了多样化、有竞争力的肠道微生物群，而GC和RT显示出与共同饮食习惯相关的更稳定的网络。功能热图显示，三种蛇肠道微生物的预测功能不同。这些发现表明，饮食偏好对肠道微生物组成和功能的影响比宿主遗传背景更强，饮食相似的远缘物种表现出趋同的肠道微生物群特征。
