Molecular assessment of the fecal microbiota in healthy cats and dogs before and during supplementation with fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and inulin using high-throughput 454-pyrosequencing

Abstract

Prebiotics are selectively fermentable dietary compounds that result in changes in the composition and/or activity of the intestinal microbiota, thus conferring benefits upon host health. In veterinary medicine, commercially available products containing prebiotics have not been well studied with regard to the changes they trigger on the composition of the gut microbiota. This study evaluated the effect of a commercially available nutraceutical containing fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and inulin on the fecal microbiota of healthy cats and dogs when administered for 16 days. Fecal samples were collected at two time points before and at two time points during prebiotic administration. Total genomic DNA was obtained from fecal samples and 454-pyrosequencing was used for 16S rRNA gene bacterial profiling. The linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LEfSe) method was used for detecting bacterial taxa that may respond (i.e., increase or decrease in its relative abundance) to prebiotic administration. Prebiotic administration was associated with a good acceptance and no side effects (e.g., diarrhea) were reported by the owners. A low dose of prebiotics (50 mL total regardless of body weight with the end product containing 0.45% of prebiotics) revealed a lower abundance of Gammaproteobacteria and a higher abundance of Veillonellaceae during prebiotic administration in cats, while Staphylococcaceae showed a higher abundance during prebiotic administration in dogs. These differences were not sufficient to separate bacterial communities as shown by analysis of weighted UniFrac distance metrics. A predictive approach of the fecal bacterial metagenome using Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) also did not reveal differences between the period before and during prebiotic administration. A second trial using a higher dose of prebiotics (3.2 mL/kg body weight with the end product containing 3.1% of prebiotics) was tested in dogs and revealed a lower abundance of Dorea (family Clostridiaceae) and a higher abundance of Megamonas and other (unknown) members of Veillonellaceae during prebiotic administration. Again, these changes were not sufficient to separate bacterial communities or predicted metabolic profiles according to treatment. A closer analysis of bacterial communities at all time-points revealed highly individualized patterns of variation. This study shows a high interindividual variation of fecal bacterial communities from pet cats and dogs, that these communities are relatively stable over time, and that some of this variation can be attributable to prebiotic administration, a phenomenon that may be affected by the amount of the prebiotic administered in the formulation. This study also provides insights into the response of gut bacterial communities in pet cats and dogs during administration of commercially available products containing prebiotics. More studies are needed to explore potentially beneficial effects on host health beyond changes in bacterial ...

Characterization of gut microbiomes of household pets in the United States using a direct-to-consumer approach

“…Comparative analyses demonstrated that the bacterial compositions of canine and feline guts differ significantly. We found significantly higher alpha diversity in cats relative to dogs, which also corroborates earlier findings [47,53]. Therefore, together these findings reveal that the DTC approach implemented herein produces results comparable to those obtained using standard techniques in the laboratory.…”

“…Both measures of gut bacterial diversity were higher in cats regardless of rarefaction depth (P<0.01, Kruskal-Wallis test, Fig 1A and S3A Fig), indicating that the feline gut harbors significantly higher bacterial diversity relative to the canine. This observation is consistent with previous reports [47,53].…”

Fermentability characteristics of different Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell wall using cat faeces as inoculum

“…These differences could be due to the specific microbial populations and/or activities in the two animal species. Our observation is in accordance with that reported by Garcia-Mazcorro et al (2015), which evaluating in vivo the effect of different prebiotic supplementation in dog and cat microbiota, concluded that the two species respond differently to the same treatment.…”

Interplay between Neuroendocrine Biomarkers and Gut Microbiota in Dogs Supplemented with Grape Proanthocyanidins: Results of Dietary Intervention Study

“…However, these results must be considered with caution since the taxa significantly different for the D1 did not correspond to those found for the D3 group or, in any case, no dose response effect was observed. Moreover, in Figure 3, the individual relative abundances of 2 significant taxa at T0, T14, and T28 indicated a high variability, which can be attributed to age, sex, breed, and other factors related to the environment, as already highlighted by previous research [45,46]. Nonetheless, the influence exerted by the genetics of the host, reported in humans [47] and livestock [48], should also considered among the factors affecting the gut microbiota.…”