High-energy diet modify rumen microbial composition and microbial energy metabolism pattern in fattening sheep

Abstract

Higher dietary energy is often used to achieve better animal performance in mutton sheep production. Notably, changing the diet formula affects rumen fermentation and the microbiota of ruminants. In this study, we investigated the effect of dietary energy on rumen fermentation and ruminal microbiota in fattening sheep. Fifteen 2-month-old white-headed Suffolk sheep (♂) × Hu sheep (♀) crossbred lambs were randomly divided into three treatments based on the dietary energy of the feeds fed: 8.67 MJ/kg (Low energy (LE); n = 5), 10.38 MJ/kg (standard energy (CON); n = 5), and 12.31 MJ/kg (high energy (HE); n = 5) groups. After 70 days of feeding, sheep were slaughtered and the ruminal fluids were collected and analyzed to determine fermentation parameters. Microbiota was determined using metagenomics sequencing. Notably, the microbial cell protein (MCP) and butyric acid concentrations were significantly high in the HE group. Metagenomic sequencing revealed that ACE and Chao indexes of the HE group were significantly decreased. Four genera among the major classified taxa across all the kingdoms differed in relative abundance in the three dietary energy levels. The relative abundances of Prevotella_brevis, Succiniclasticum_ruminis, Prevotellace-ae_bacterium, and Lachnospiraceae_bacterium were significantly correlated with rumen fermentation. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis further revealed that a high-energy diet increased lipid metabolism of microbiota. The Carbohydrate Active enzymes (CAZy) gene, which participates in energy metabolism, was upregulated, while genes regulating plant cell wall degradation were downregulated in the HE group. These results suggest that a high-energy diet had minimal influence on the rumen fermentation pattern but altered the composition of the rumen microbiota, enhancing microbial lipid metabolism and limiting crude fiber metabolism. The findings of this study provide scientific evidence of the effect of dietary energy on ruminant fermentation and fattening sheep production.

High-Energy Supplemental Feeding Shifts Gut Microbiota Composition and Function in Red Deer (Cervus elaphus)

“…In ruminant-related studies, it was found that a high-energy diet increased lipid metabolism in the microbiota. Carbohydrate-activating enzyme (CAZy) genes involved in energy metabolism were upregulated, while genes regulating plant cell wall degradation were downregulated in the high-energy group [76]. This is similar to our findings that microbial involvement in lipid metabolism was significantly greater after high-energy supplementation than in the NSF.…”

Regulation of the growth performance and the gastrointestinal microbiota community by the addition of defective pear fermentation to feed of small-tailed Han sheep

“…The results indicated a significant increase in species richness of bacterial communities with the addition of DPF, although the Shannon and coverage indices showed no significant differences. At the phylum level, the microbial composition of the rumen is relatively stable, predominantly comprising Firmicutes, Bacteroidota, Fibrobacteres , and Proteobacteria (McCann et al, 2014 ; Deusch et al, 2017 ; Ge et al, 2023 ). In line with previous studies, the rumen microbiota in our study was dominated by Firmicutes and Bacteroidota , collectively accounting for over 90% of the total abundance in each treatment group.…”

Prickly ash seeds can promote healthy production of sheep by regulating the rumen microbial community

“…The digestion of more than 70% of carbohydrates and proteins in the feed is completed by rumen microorganisms (Wang et al, 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2021 ). Therefore, diet composition is an important factor affecting the structure and function of rumen microflora (Chai et al, 2021 ; Ge et al, 2023 ). Alpha diversity indexes can reflect the richness and diversity of species in the samples, of which the ACE index and Chao1 index were mainly related to the richness of microbial communities, and the larger the value, which indicates that there were more species in the samples, the higher the richness; whereas the Shannon index and the Simpson index were related to the diversity of microbial communities; the larger the Shannon index, the higher the diversity of microbial communities, and the smaller the Simpson index, the higher the diversity of microbial communities (Jiang et al, 2022 ; Li et al, 2022 ).…”