Catching a glimpse of the bacterial gut community of companion animals: a canine and feline perspective

Abstract

Dogs and cats have gained a special position in human society by becoming our principal companion animals. In this context, efforts to ensure their health and welfare have increased exponentially, with in recent times a growing interest in assessing the impact of the gut microbiota on canine and feline health. Recent technological advances have generated new tools to not only examine the intestinal microbial composition of dogs and cats, but also to scrutinize the genetic repertoire and associated metabolic functions of this microbial community. The application of high-throughput sequencing techniques to canine and feline faecal samples revealed similarities in their bacterial composition, with Fusobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes as the most prevalent and abundant phyla, followed by Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. Although key bacterial members were consistently present in their gut microbiota, the taxonomic composition and the metabolic repertoire of the intestinal microbial population may be influenced by several factors, including diet, age and anthropogenic aspects, as well as intestinal dysbiosis. The current review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the multitude of factors which play a role in the modulation of the canine and feline gut microbiota and that of their human owners with whom they share the same environment.

Age and Giardia intestinalis Infection Impact Canine Gut Microbiota

“…At 21 weeks of age (D85), puppies present an adult-like microbiota dominated by four phyla: Bacteroidota, Firmicutes, Fusobacteriota, and Proteobacteria ( Figure 5 A). Although the predominant phyla identified are similar to previous observations in healthy dogs, proportions vary among studies [ 57 , 58 , 59 ]. The canine breed, environmental conditions, age, weight, infections, sequencing technologies, and sequencing depth are responsible for significant variations reported for gut microbiota composition [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”

The Fecal Microbiota of Dogs Switching to a Raw Diet Only Partially Converges to That of Wolves

“…The increased abundance of Clostridium perfringens and Fusobacterium varium is associated with raw diet consumption ( Kim et al, 2017 ; Schmidt et al, 2018 ). Both the bacterial composition and metabolic repertoire of the canine gut microbiota have evolved to adapt to high digestible protein or high carbohydrate intake ( Alessandri et al, 2020 ; Huang et al, 2020 ). Most of these studies assess microbial changes between dogs on different diets at a single time point, but few studies have evaluated such microbial changes in the light of coevolution of gut microbial communities following domestication of the dog.…”

The Airway Pathobiome in Complex Respiratory Diseases: A Perspective in Domestic Animals

“…The gut of ruminants (Ramayo-Caldas et al, 2019), pigs (Mach et al, 2015;Ramayo-Caldas et al, 2016), horses (Mach et al, 2020;Mach et al, 2021a), companion animals (Alessandri et al, 2020) and chickens (Rychlik, 2020) accommodates a complex community of microorganisms that live in a commensal relationship with their hosts and provide significant contributions to the metabolism and immune responses. It might be hypothesized that in symbiosis, gut microbiota ensures the uptake of microbial metabolites that favorably affects the immune and endocrine pathways involved in respiratory disease and progression, whereas the lungs maintain inflammatory homeostasis in the gut by controlling immune response.…”