Feline chronic enteropathy (CE) is a common gastrointestinal disorder in cats and mainly comprises inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and small cell lymphoma (SCL). Both IBD and SCL in cats share features with chronic enteropathies such as IBD and monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma in humans. The aim of this study was to characterize the fecal microbiome of 38 healthy cats and 27 cats with CE (13 cats with IBD and 14 cats with SCL). Alpha diversity indices were significantly decreased in cats with CE (OTU p = 0.003, Shannon Index p = 0.008, Phylogenetic Diversity p = 0.019). ANOSIM showed a significant difference in bacterial communities, albeit with a small effect size (P = 0.023, R = 0.073). Univariate analysis and LEfSE showed a lower abundance of facultative anaerobic taxa of the phyla Firmicutes (families Ruminococcaceae and Turicibacteraceae), Actinobacteria (genus Bifidobacterium) and Bacteroidetes (i.a. Bacteroides plebeius) in cats with CE. The facultative anaerobic taxa Enterobacteriaceae and Streptococcaceae were increased in cats with CE. No significant difference between the microbiome of cats with IBD and those with SCL was found. Cats with CE showed patterns of dysbiosis similar to those in found people with IBD.

Feline chronic enteropathy (CE) is a common gastrointestinal disorder in cats and mainly comprises inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and small cell lymphoma (SCL). Differentiation between IBD and SCL can be diagnostically challenging. We characterized the fecal metabolome of 14 healthy cats and 22 cats with naturally occurring CE (11 cats with IBD and 11 cats with SCL). Principal component analysis and heat map analysis showed distinct clustering between cats with CE and healthy controls. Random forest classification revealed good group prediction for healthy cats and cats with CE, with an overall out-of-bag error rate of 16.7%. Univariate analysis indicated that levels of 84 compounds in cats with CE differed from those in healthy cats. Polyunsaturated fatty acids held discriminatory power in differentiating IBD from SCL. Metabolomic profiles of cats with CE resembled those in people with CE with significant alterations of metabolites related to tryptophan, arachidonic acid, and glutathione pathways.

Objectives Previous studies have identified various bacterial taxa that are altered in cats with chronic enteropathies (CE) vs healthy cats. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a targeted quantitative molecular method to evaluate the fecal microbiota of cats. Methods Fecal samples from 80 client-owned healthy cats and 68 cats with CE were retrospectively evaluated. A panel of quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays was used to measure the fecal abundance of total bacteria and seven bacterial taxa: Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Clostridium hiranonis, Escherichia coli, Faecalibacterium, Streptococcus and Turicibacter. The nearest centroid classifier algorithm was used to calculate a dysbiosis index (DI) based on these qPCR abundances. Results The abundances of total bacteria, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, C hiranonis, Faecalibacterium and Turicibacter were significantly decreased, while those of E coli and Streptococcus were significantly increased in cats with CE ( P <0.027 for all). The DI in cats with CE was significantly higher compared with healthy cats ( P <0.001). When the cut-off value of the DI was set at 0, it provided 77% (95% confidence interval [CI] 66–85) sensitivity and 96% (95% CI 89–99) specificity to differentiate the microbiota of cats with CE from those of healthy cats. Fifty-two of 68 cats with CE had a DI >0. Conclusions and relevance A qPCR-based DI for assessing the fecal microbiota of cats was established. The results showed that a large proportion of cats with CE had an altered fecal microbiota as evidenced by an increased DI. Prospective studies are warranted to evaluate the utility of this assay for clinical assessment of feline CE.