Enterotypes of the Gut Microbial Community and Their Response to Plant Secondary Compounds in Plateau Pikas

Microorganisms

Shangang Jia¹  Wenjing Li²  He Zhang²  Haibo Fu²  Chuanfa Liu²  Liangzhi Zhang²  Qi Cheng²  Chao Fan²  Yanming Zhang² 

[1] College of Grassland Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China;Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China;

关键词: gut microbiota;    16S rDNA;    enterotype;    plant secondary compound;    adaptability;    microbial diversity;   

DOI  :  10.3390/microorganisms8091311

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Animal gut microbiomes can be clustered into “enterotypes” characterized by an abundance of signature genera. The characteristic determinants, stability, and resilience of these community clusters remain poorly understood. We used plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) as a model and identified three enterotypes by 16S rDNA sequencing. Among the top 15 genera, 13 showed significantly different levels of abundance between the enterotypes combined with different microbial functions and distinct fecal short-chain fatty acids. We monitored changes in the microbial community associated with the transfer of plateau pikas from field to laboratory and observed that feeding them a single diet reduced microbial diversity, resulting in a single enterotype with an altered composition of the dominant bacteria. However, microbial diversity, an abundance of some changed dominant genera, and enterotypes were partially restored after adding swainsonine (a plant secondary compound found in the natural diet of plateau pikas) to the feed. These results provide strong evidence that gut microbial diversity and enterotypes are directly related to specific diet, thereby indicating that the formation of different enterotypes can help animals adapt to complex food conditions. Additionally, natural plant secondary compounds can maintain dominant bacteria and inter-individual differences of gut microbiota and promote the resilience of enterotypes in small herbivorous mammals.

【 授权许可】

Unknown