Metagenomics Reveals That Intravenous Injection of Beta-Hydroxybutyric Acid (BHBA) Disturbs the Nasopharynx Microflora and Increases the Risk of Respiratory Diseases

Abstract

It is widely accepted that maintenance of microbial diversity is essential for the health of the respiratory tract; however, there are limited reports on the correlation between starvation and respiratory tract microbial diversity. In the present study, saline/β-hydroxybutyric acid (BHBA) intravenous injection after dietary restriction was used to imitate different degrees of starvation. A total of 13 healthy male yaks were imposed to different dietary restrictions and intravenous injections, and their nasopharyngeal microbiota profiles were obtained by metagenomic shotgun sequencing. In healthy yaks, the main dominant phyla were Proteobacteria (33.0%), Firmicutes (22.6%), Bacteroidetes (17.2%), and Actinobacteria (13.2%); the most dominated species was Clostridium botulinum (10.8%). It was found that 9 days of dietary restriction and 2 days of BHBA injection (imitating severe starvation) significantly decreased the microbial diversity and disturbed its structure and functional composition, which increased the risk of respiratory diseases. This study also implied that oral bacteria played an important role in maintaining nasopharynx microbial homeostasis. In this study, the correlation between starvation and nasopharynx microbial diversity and its potential mechanism was investigated for the first time, providing new ideas for the prevention of respiratory diseases.

Antiviral bioactivity of resveratrol against Zika virus infection in human retinal pigment epithelial cells

“…Viruses could modulate MD in order to favour their intracellular survival or elude host immunity. Hence, the interplay between MD and viral pathogenesis represents a novel antiviral strategy [ 41 ]. The impact of Flavivirus infection on the MD has been mainly focused on DENV.…”

Metagenomics Reveals That Proper Placement After Long-Distance Transportation Significantly Affects Calf Nasopharyngeal Microbiota and Is Critical for the Prevention of Respiratory Diseases

“…The species and function annotation procedures were the same as we described in our previous work ( Qi et al, 2021 ). Briefly, the scaffolds/scaftigs sequence of each sample was subjected to BLASTN against bacterial, archaeal, fungal, and viral sequences in the NCBI-NT database (Nucleotide Collection, 1 , v2016-6-19, E value was set to < 0.00001).…”

“…Losing the balance of beef cattle’s nasopharyngeal microorganisms contributes to the morbidity and mortality associated with bovine respiratory diseases (BRDs) ( Holman et al, 2015 ; Zeineldin et al, 2017 ). Hence, the nasopharynx microbial community is regarded as the respiratory health situation indicator, especially BRD ( Qi et al, 2021 ; Zeineldin et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The composition and diversity of cattle’s nasopharynx microbial community are affected by many factors, including diet ( Qi et al, 2021 ), vaccination and environment ( Mcmullen et al, 2018 ), and transport ( Pratelli et al, 2021 ). In China and North America, long-distance transport was an inevitable phase for the cattle industry ( Cirone et al, 2019 ).…”

“…For example, many important bacteria are uncultivable, and the depth of 16S rRNA sequencing is not enough to identify microorganisms at the species level. In the past years, with the progress in the next-generation sequencing technologies, metagenomics-based studies are being widely applied to determine the composition of various microbiomes and analyze their functions at the DNA and RNA levels ( Wang et al, 2015 ; Gilbert et al, 2016 ; Qi et al, 2021 ).…”