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, whileStaphylococcaceae 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 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 Guard et al., 2015; Hand et al., 76 2013; Handl etal., 2013; Junginger et al., 2014; Kieler et al., 2016; Minamoto et al., 2014; 77 Minamoto et al.,2015;Song et al., 2013;Suchodolski et al., 2015). These studies are supported 78 by meta'omic analytic techniques (Morgan and Huttenhower, 2014) and powerful freely-79 available computational resources to analyze the generated data (Navas- Molina et al., 2013). 86 Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium), intestinal motility, epithelial cellular integrity, and microbial 87 biochemical networks (Scott et al., 2015). Interestingly, prebiotics appear to also influence 88 distant sites such as bones and skin apparently through an increase of beneficial bacteria in the 89 gut and derived fermentation products from this increase reaching target cells (Collins and Reid, 90 2016). Several research studies have shown beneficial effects associated with the consumption of 91 fiber on gut microbiota and overall health (e.g. improvement of gut barrier integrity) in humans 92 and other vertebrates (Montalban-Arques et al., 2015). 106 Moreover, prebiotics should theoretically increase the abundance of certain bacterial groups (e.g.107 Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium) in t...

Effects of prebiotic inulin-type fructans on blood metabolite and hormone concentrations and faecal microbiota and metabolites in overweight dogs

“…Similar to the present study, no significant treatments clustered in the unweighted or weighted principal coordinate analysis plots. The microbial changes we observed in this study were not altered in that study (22) . The bacteria belonging to the family Erysipelotrichaceae possess bile-salt hydrolase genes, which may modify BA via deconjugation (64) .…”

“…Although those taxa were not altered, there was a decrease in Coprobacillus and there tended to be an increase in Eubacterium and Turicibacter in response to treatment with prebiotic. In a recent study by Garcia-Mazcorro et al (22) , various breeds of dogs were supplemented with a prebiotic blend, containing inulin, making up approximately 0•5 % of the diet on a DM basis. Similar to the present study, no significant treatments clustered in the unweighted or weighted principal coordinate analysis plots.…”

“…It is well established that (1) body composition (lean v. obese) and (2) dietary fibres/prebiotics affect the composition and diversity of the gastrointestinal microbiome (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25) . These effects suggest that prebiotics may be a promising dietary strategy for promoting health, especially in overweight or obese populations.…”

Metagenomic insights into the roles of Proteobacteria in the gastrointestinal microbiomes of healthy dogs and cats

“…A number of studies have investigated the impact of prebiotic and probiotic treatments (Beloshapka et al., ; Garcia‐Mazcorro, Barcenas‐Walls, Suchodolski, & Steiner, ; Garcia‐Mazcorro et al., ; Kerr, Forster, Dowd, Ryan, & Swanson, ; Middelbos et al., ; Panasevich et al., ), although again the impact of these on Proteobacteria levels and composition appears to be minimal. For example, the supplementation of a kibble diet with beet pulp dietary fiber, a common ingredient used in commercial dog food, provided a complex mixture of fermentable and nonfermentable carbohydrates (Middelbos et al., ).…”

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“…Beet pulp and potato fiber are two prebiotic foods that have been tested in dogs and found to induce changes in microbiome composition at the phylum level, increasing the abundance of Firmicutes and decreasing that of Fusobacteria (Middelbos et al 2010;Panasevich et al 2015). The addition of other prebiotics including inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, and yeast cell wall extract resulted in more minor changes to a few families and genera, but with little overlap in the identity of these taxa between prebiotic sources (Beloshapka et al 2013;Garcia-Mazcorro et al 2017). Beans, which combine a possible prebiotic and novel protein source for dogs, affected the abundance of only a few genera (Kerr et al 2013;Beloshapka and Forster 2016).…”