Heat Stress Altered the Vaginal Microbiome and Metabolome in Rabbits

Abstract

Heat stress can have an impact on parental gamete maturation and reproduction functions. According to current research, the microbial composition of the vaginal cavity is species specific. Pregnancy, menstruation, and genital diseases have been linked to the dynamics of vaginal ecology. In this study, we characterized the vaginal microbiota and metabolites after heat stress. At the phylum level, the rabbit’s vaginal microbial composition of rabbit showed high similarity with that of humans. In the Heat group, the relative abundance of the dominant microbiota Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria increased, while the relative abundance of Firmicutes decreased. Furthermore, heat stress significantly increased the relative abundance of W5053, Helcococcus, Thiopseudomonas, ldiomaarina, atopostipes, and facklamia, whereas the relative abundance of 12 genera significantly decreased, including Streptococcus, UCG-005, Alistipes, [Eubacterium]_xylanophilum_group, Comamonas, RB41, Fastidiosipila, Intestinimonas, Arthrobacter, Lactobacillus, Leucobacter, and Family_xlll_AD3011_group. Besides, the relative concentrations of 158 metabolites differed significantly between the Heat and Control groups. Among them, the endocrine hormone estradiol (E2) increased in the Heat group and was positively associated with a number of metabolites such as linolelaidic acid (C18:2N6T), N-acetylsphingosine, N-oleoyl glycine, trans-petroselinic acid, syringic acid, 2-(1-adamantyl)-1-morpholinoethan-1-one, 5-OxoETE, and 16-heptadecyne-1,2,4-triol. Further, the majority of the differential metabolites were enriched in steroid biosynthesis and endocrine and other factor-regulated calcium reabsorption pathways, reflecting that heat stress may affect calcium metabolism, hormone-induced signaling, and endocrine balance of vaginal ecology. These findings provide a comprehensive depiction of rabbit vaginal ecology and reveal the effects of heat stress on the vagina via the analysis of vaginal microbiome and metabolome, which may provide a new thought for low female fertility under heat stress.

Omics analysis of the effect of cold normal saline stress through gastric gavage on LPS induced mice

“…This finding suggests that cold stress may exacerbate intestinal inflammation in mice. On the other hand, lower abundances of Family_XIII_UCG_001, Lachnospiraceae_UCG_001, Novosphingobium, RB41, and Tyzzerella have been previously reported in chronic colitis mice (Huangfu et al, 2021;Xu et al, 2021), Crohn's disease patients (Jiang et al, 2022), ulcerative colitis mice (Wang et al, 2019), heat stress-induced rabbits (Shi et al, 2022) and Alzheimer patients (Kaiyrlykyzy et al, 2022), respectively. These findings are consistent with the observations in the MC and ML groups of the current study, which indicated that cold stress may have a negative impact on mice by reducing the abundance of these four genera.…”

Comparative Analysis of the Pre-Parturition and Post-Parturition Genital Tract Microbiota in Plateau Bangor Sewa Sheep

“…Dietzia [ 46 ], Aeromicrobium [ 47 ], and Parvibacter [ 48 ] are reported as probiotic genera; the lower abundance of those three genera in sheep after calving may demonstrate the sub-healthy status of Bangor Sewa sheep. Previous research found lower abundances of Nocardioides in Salmonella-infected pigs [ 49 ]; unclassified_ Clostridia in females with osteoporosis and osteopenia [ 50 ]; Sphingobacteriaceae in obese people [ 51 ]; UCG_005 and RB41 in heat-stressed rabbits [ 52 ]; dgA_11_gut_group in rabbits model of Alzheimer disease [ 53 ]; unclassified_ Ruminococcaceae in people with hepatitis B [ 54 ]; NK4A214_group in patients with rectovaginal fistula [ 55 ]; V9D2013_group in piglets treated with Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) [ 56 ]; Prevotellaceae _UCG_004 in zearalenone-exposed mice [ 57 ]; Monoglobus in sleep-deprived mice [ 58 ]; Christensenellaceae _R_7_group in Alzheimer’s and dementia patients [ 59 ]; and Micromonospora in LPS-induced inflammation in chicks [ 60 ], which indicated that those genera were negatively related to host status. In the current results, the abundance of those genera was significantly changed in post-parturition in the genital tract of Bangor Sewa sheep, which may be closely tied to the changes in the microenvironment, including immune and hormonal factors.…”

RISING STARS: The heat is on: how does heat exposure cause pregnancy complications?

“…Of interest, vaginal Lactobacillus sp. depletion is strongly associated with preterm birth (Brown et al 2019, Payne et al 2021 and is reduced by heat exposure (Song et al 2020, Shi et al 2022. Thus, ascertaining whether existing infection in pregnancy is exacerbated by heat exposure is of interest.…”