Background
Colonization of intestinal microbiota in ruminant during the early life is important to host health, metabolism and immunity. Accumulating evidence revealed the ameliorative effect of milk replacer administration in the gut microbial development of early-weaned ruminants. Yimeng black goats (YBGs) inhabiting Shandong, China show a complex intestinal microbial ecosystem, but studies of their gut microbiota are still insufficient to report. Here, this study was performed to investigate how the gut microbiota develops in weaned YBGs with the effect of age and milk replacer.
Results
Results indicated that both age and milk replacer were important factors to change the gut microbiota of YBGs. Although the alpha diversity of gut microbiota did not change with the age of YBGs, the taxonomic compositions significantly changed. The relative abundance of some beneficial bacteria such as Lachnospiraceae, Ruminococcaceae, Ruminiclostridium, Eubacterium and Barnesiella significantly decreased and subsequently increase with age, which contributes to maintain the stability of intestinal environment and realize the diversity of intestinal functions. The relative abundance of Porphyromonas, Brevundimonas, Flavobacterium, Stenotrophomonas, Propionibacterium, Acinetobacter, Enterococcus and Clostridium belong to pathogenic bacteria in milk replacer-treated YBGs was significantly decreased. Additionally, some beneficial bacteria such as Ruminococcus, Ruminococcaceae, Christensenellaceae and Ruminiclostridium also display a trend of decreasing first followed by gradually increasing.
Conclusions
This study first revealed the gut bacterial community alterations in YBGs with the effect of age and milk replacer. This study also characterized the gut microbial distribution in YBGs with different ages and provided better insight into microbial population structure and diversity of YBGs. Moreover, milk replacer may serve as a good applicant for improving gut microbial development in early-weaned YBGs.
Antibiotics are widely used to treat various diseases. However, growing evidence indicates that antibiotic therapy in human life increases the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Therefore, we need appropriate methods to reduce the incidence or symptoms of IBD. In this study, we used lincomycin hydrochloride to construct a gut microbial dysbiosis model in mice, and then, constructed an ulcerative colitis (UC) model. Meanwhile, we used Lactobacillus plantarum A3 from equine to treat UC in mice with gut microbial dysbiosis. The results showed that lincomycin hydrochloride had little effect on the small gut microbiota in mice, but had a more destructive effect on the large intestin. Lactobacillus plantarum A3 alleviated the symptoms of UC in mice, which was reflected in its significantly reduced spleen index and disease activity index (DAI) (p < 0.05), inhibited the shortening of colon and alleviated the invasion of inflammatory cells in the colon. Moreover, we found that it played a mitigatory role by inhibiting oxidative stress and regulating inflammatory cytokines in mice. At the same time, it restored the diversity and composition of the colonic microbiota and significantly increased the abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Blautia and Akkermansia (p < 0.05); Notably, it significantly increased the concentrations of arachidonoyl ethanolamide phosphate (AEA-P) and cortisone (p < 0.05) which have analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. In conclusion, our study found that Lactobacillus plantarum A3 has the potential to regulate UC in mice with gut microbial dysbiosis.
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