Mink (Mustela vison) Gut Microbial Communities from Northeast China and Its Internal Relationship with Gender and Food Additives

Abstract

It is well documented that the microbial interactions and biodiversity play an important role in health and disease in mammalian species. There is a rare study about gut microbiota of Mustelidae family. In this study, 40 male and female minks from Northeast China were divided into three groups and fed until they reached maturity. The V3 region of 16S rRNA genes was amplified and sequenced using NGS. There were 526 OTUs principally concentrated among five bacterial phyla. Two points about mink's body weight gaining were observed: (1) the weight of male individuals increased more rapidly than female individuals; (2) the weight of individuals whose feed was supplemented with Chinese herb additives increased more rapidly than individuals without giving food additives. The differences of microorganism abundance were shown in two points: (1) two genera which had ≥2-fold change difference were found between male and female minks. (2) Ten genera which had a ≥2-fold change difference were found among minks with and without Chinese herb additive. Findings from this study provide new and fundamental knowledge on the gut microbiota composition of minks farmed in Northeast China, which can contribute to the general well-being of minks worldwide.

Prevalence of fecal viruses and bacteriophage in Canadian farmed mink (Neovison vison)

“…In a fecal microbiome study conducted on samples from mink in Northeast China, Zhao et al. () showed that the two most prevalent bacterial genera were Clostridium and Escherichia , phages, both of which were found in our study. Interestingly, significantly higher numbers of Pseudomonas ‐associated phage sequences were detected in adult female fecal samples compared to kit samples ( q = 0.02), but since the detected sequences may not represent colonization by Pseudomonas species, the implications of these results remain unclear.…”

Fecal bacterial microbiota of Canadian commercial mink (Neovison vison): Yearly, life stage, and seasonal comparisons

“…However, Firmicutes is followed by a much larger proportion of Proteobacteria than has been previously reported in healthy dogs, cats, and other carnivores (34% vs <15%) [ 7 – 9 , 28 – 33 ]. This is consistent with the high relative abundance of both Firmicutes and Proteobacteria found in mink feces by Bahl et al ., but unlike the work of Zhao et al ., in which a higher overall relative abundance of Proteobacteria was seen in mink feces, although the latter used a different methodology (amplification of the V3 region), which may explain, at least in part, the lack of agreement between studies [ 15 , 34 ]. As seen in other mammals, when the microbiota is compared between adults and young weaned animals [ 35 – 39 ], there were few significant differences identified between adult female mink and weaned kits.…”

Investigation of the viral and bacterial microbiota in intestinal samples from mink (Neovison vison) with pre-weaning diarrhea syndrome using next generation sequencing

“…Our study groups were suckling mink kits which had not been introduced to solid feed, and therefore their composition of gut bacteria was expected to be not so diverse and to differ from adult minks since the development of the bacterial microbiota is dependent on age and type of feeding [23,25]. Our results showed that the major groups of bacteria in both healthy and diseased animals were enterococci and staphylococci which differ from the composition in adult mink where Clostridia, Fusobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria dominate [27][28][29]48]. Large differences between the pools were seen and seem to correlate with litter age (Figs 2 and 3).…”

“…Interestingly, the combination of increased proportion of enterococci and E.coli that we found in the diarrheic group also has been demonstrated in piglets with New Neonatal Porcine Diarrhea (NNPD) [32,52,54], suggesting some similarities in pathology between mink kits and piglets with diarrhea in the suckling period. Clostridia and Escherichia-Shigella are major components of the adult bacterial microbiota [27,29], and based on these findings PWD in mink kits may be interpreted as a general result of less tolerance of too early colonization by specific bacteria groups. Material for this study was collected from commercial mink farms with severe on-going outbreaks of PWD and therefore it was impossible to control and avoid antimicrobial treatment of the females in all the sampled litters.…”

“…However, some intestinal bacteria are not cultivable which is a drawback when interpreting these results, and recent studies using next generation sequencing (NGS) have shown that the adult mink microbiota is dominated by Firmicutes class Clostridiales although large inter-individual differences were demonstrated [27][28]. Adult mink also have a low amount of bacteroides compared to other species [23,[26][27][28][29]. Mink are characterized by having a simple intestinal tract with a rapid passage time (3-4 hours) which might be even shorter in suckling kits [23,30].…”