Altered Gut Microbiota Profiles in Sows and Neonatal Piglets Associated with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Infection

Abstract

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a devastating cause of diarrhea in pigs worldwide. Most of studies have focused on molecular and pathogenic characterization of PEDV, whereas there were limited studies in understanding the role of gut microbiota (GM) in viral-associated diarrhea. Here, using the Illumina MiSeq platform, we examined and compared the impact of PEDV infection on the GM of sows and their piglets less than 10 days old. Our results showed that PEDV caused alternations in the structure and abundance of GM from levels of phylum to genus, and even species. For sows, a significant decrease of observed species was found in diarrheal sows than that in healthy sows (p < 0.05). The unweighted and weighted UniFrac distances also revealed considerable segregations of GM structure among healthy, asymptomatic, and diarrheal sows. For piglets, Bacteroidetes, the dominant bacteria in healthy piglets, were replaced by Firmicutes in asymptomatic and diarrheal piglets. The abundances of Fusobacteria and Proteobacteria were also remarkably increased in asymptomatic piglets and diarrheal piglets when compared to those of the healthy piglets. Our findings demonstrated that PEDV infection caused severe perturbations of GM, reduced probiotic bacteria, and enriched pathogenic bacteria.

Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Altered Colonic Microbiota Communities in Suckling Piglets

“…This sensitivity may generate individual differences in microorganisms, even in piglets from the same cohort [35]. Here, we found that PEDV infection significantly altered the gut microbiota in piglets, an outcome that was confirmed in several other studies [20][21][22][23].…”

“…In this study, we successfully demonstrated that the microbial community structure of colonic mucosa and content differed significantly between healthy and PEDV-infected piglets. Likewise, previous research has shown that the proportions of Escherichia-Shigella, Enterococcus, Fusobacterium, and Veillonella increased significantly in PEDV-infected piglets, while those of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA)-producing bacteria (e.g., Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group, Butyricimonas, and Alistipes) underwent a decrease [21]. Moreover, the gut microbiota of PEDV-infected piglets was shown to exhibit significant changes at the genus and phylum levels [22] that are likely to disrupt microecological homeostasis.…”

“…We observed a clear increase in the relative abundance of Proteobacteria and Fusobacteria in PEDV-infected suckling pigs. Fusobacteria increases have previously been observed in the feces of PEDV-infected suckling pigs [1,20,21]. Furthermore, many studies suggested that this phylum is associated with various clinical anaerobic infections (including in the mouth, teeth, gut, and brain) in humans, and is positively correlated with catarrhal appendicitis on the mucosal surface [38,39].…”

“…The timely treatment of PEDV-induced diarrhea and vomiting can effectively reduce mortality in newborn piglets [2]. Many previous researches [1,[21][22][23] linking specific bacteria to healthy versus infected piglets suggests that regulating intestinal microbiota is a promising method for PED treatment. Indeed, gut microbiota have been successfully used to prevent diarrhea [47].…”

Porcine deltacoronavirus infection alters bacterial communities in the colon and feces of neonatal piglets

“…In pigs, several studies have reported that there exists a close relationship between diarrhea-relating coronaviruses and intestinal microbiota (Huang et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2015;Song et al, 2017;Tan et al, 2019). It has been reported that PEDV infection induced gut microbial dysbiosis, leading to a reduction in beneficial bacteria and an increase in pathogenic bacteria.…”