Influence of Novel Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus Infection on Migrating Whooper Swans Fecal Microbiota

Abstract

The migration of wild birds plays an important role in the transmission and spread of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, posing a severe risk to animal and human health. Substantial evidence suggests that altered gut microbial community is implicated in the infection of respiratory influenza virus. However, the influence of H5N1 infection in gut microbiota of migratory birds remains unknown. In January 2015, a novel recombinant H5N1 virus emerged and killed about 100 migratory birds, mainly including whooper swans in Sanmenxia Reservoir Area of China. Here, we describe the first fecal microbiome diversity study of H5N1-infected migratory birds. By investigating the influence of H5N1 infection on fecal bacterial communities in infected and uninfected individuals, we found that H5N1 infection shaped the gut microbiota composition by a difference in the dominance of some genera, such as Aeromonas and Lactobacillus. We also found a decreased α diversity and increased β diversity in infectious individuals. Our results highlight that increases in changes in pathogen-containing gut communities occur when individuals become infected with H5N1. Our study may provide the first evidence that there are statistical association among H5N1 presence and fecal microbiota compositional shifts, and properties of the fecal microbiota may serve as the risk of gut-linked disease in migrates with H5N1 and further aggravate the disease transmission.

Migration, pathogens and the avian microbiome: A comparative study in sympatric migrants and residents

“…Additionally, we identified differentially abundant genera across six phyla. The occurrence of some highly abundant bacterial genera in previous studies of migratory species (Lewis et al., 2016, 2017; Risely et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2018) were common in both migrant and resident barn swallows (e.g., Enterococcus , Escherichia / Shigella , Lactococcus ), but in line with findings in the above studies, we found significantly greater abundance of the genera Catellicoccus , Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 , Citrobacter , Corynebacterium , Fusobacterium , Lactobacillus , Leuconostoc , Mycoplasma , Romboutsia , Staphylococcus and Turicibacter in migrants ( deseq2 , Table ). There were few overlaps between the barn swallows in our study and the passerines studied by Lewis et al.…”

“…Additionally, we identified differentially abundant genera across six phyla. The occurrence of some highly abundant bacterial genera in previous studies of migratory species (Lewis et al, 2016(Lewis et al, , 2017Risely et al, 2018;Zhao et al, 2018) were common in both migrant and resident barn swallows (e.g.,…”

“…Recently a variety of studies have examined the factors that affect the microbiome of migratory birds, such as the effects of disease, the environment or migratory season (Cao et al, 2020;Lewis et al, 2017;Risely et al, 2017Risely et al, , 2018Zhao et al, 2018). Some of these studies have been able to test how migration alters the microbiome by comparing the microbial community structure of resident individuals to migratory individuals during (Risely et al, 2018) or directly following the migratory period (Risely et al, 2017).…”

“…Microbial communities are highly dynamic, affected by both internal (e.g., physiological state, sex, breeding status, genetic predispositions) and external (e.g., season, location, diet, social interactions) factors (Benson et al., 2010; David et al., 2014; Hird et al., 2018; Lewis et al., 2016). The infection status (e.g., influenza infection) of the host can also have far‐reaching implications, not only for respiratory microbiota (Yildiz et al., 2018), but also for gut microbiota (Deriu et al., 2016; Ganz et al., 2017; Hird et al., 2015, 2018; Zhao et al., 2018). The range of potential interactions between hosts and their microbial communities has motivated many microbiome studies in model species (Mann et al., 2018; Srinivasan et al., 2018; Yildiz et al., 2018).…”

“…In addition, we (d) characterized disease status for key regional pathogens (AIV, Newcastle disease virus [NDV] and Salmonella spp. ), in both migrant and resident barn swallows sampled together, as differences in disease status could potentially underly (confound) differences in microbial community compositions (Hird et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2018).…”