Estimation of silent phenotypes of calf antibiotic dysbiosis

Abstract

Reducing antibiotic usage among livestock animals to prevent antimicrobial resistance has become an urgent issue worldwide. This study evaluated the effects of administering chlortetracycline (CTC), a versatile antibacterial agent, on the performance, blood components, fecal microbiota, and organic acid concentrations of calves. Japanese Black calves were fed with milk replacers containing CTC at 10 g/kg (CON group) or 0 g/kg (EXP group). Growth performance was not affected by CTC administration. However, CTC administration altered the correlation between fecal organic acids and bacterial genera. Machine learning (ML) methods such as association analysis, linear discriminant analysis, and energy landscape analysis revealed that CTC administration affected populations of various types of fecal bacteria. Interestingly, the abundance of several methane-producing bacteria at 60 days of age was high in the CON group, and the abundance of Lachnospiraceae, a butyrate-producing bacterium, was high in the EXP group. Furthermore, statistical causal inference based on ML data estimated that CTC treatment affected the entire intestinal environment, potentially suppressing butyrate production, which may be attributed to methanogens in feces. Thus, these observations highlight the multiple harmful impacts of antibiotics on the intestinal health of calves and the potential production of greenhouse gases by calves.

Validation of causal inference data using DirectLiNGAM in an environmental small-scale model and calculation settings

“…Pairwise-based DirectLiNGAM, which uses a simple linear approximation to reduce the computational cost of the likelihood ratio, was later developed [3] . DirectLiNGAM has been applied to various data, such as medical and health data [ 7 , 8 ], metagenome and metabolome data [ 9 , 10 ], and financial data [11] . The background information is detailed in the ‘Additional Information’ section.…”

The regulatory mechanism of garlic skin improving the growth performance of fattening sheep through metabolism and immunity

“…Sheep provides wool along with good quality meat and milk due to which its role in the backyard and commercial farming cannot be neglected. Many approaches are being adapted for the proper growth and health of sheep among which use of natural products as therapeutic and growth promoting substances is gaining popularity from the past few decades (29)(30)(31). Research has found that GAS has strong functions such as antioxidation, detoxification, sterilization, disease prevention, and aiding digestion.…”