The immediate environment during postnatal development has long-term impact on gut community structure in pigs

Abstract

The gastrointestinal tract of mammals contains a complex microbial community that influences numerous aspects of health and development. It is postulated that establishment of this community during early life has long-term consequences on the health status of adults. Potential influences on colonization are expected to include environmental microbes, diet and the developmental changes of the host. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was used to follow the individual community dynamics of 24 piglets over the period of 3-36 days after birth. The community of piglets older than 31 days was inferred to show high stability relative to the first 28 days post birth. The stable day 36 community showed significant correlation between cohabiting piglets, but not between siblings. This cohabitation effect was not observable in 1-or 2-week-old piglets but was strongest at either 3 or 4 weeks post birth. The onset of this change after 2 weeks is predicted to be after the development of key induction elements of the immune system and before significant levels of piglet sIgA were observable (4 weeks). The outcome is altered community dynamics that result in significant similarity between the stable communities that develop in cohabiting pigs. We conclude that for a finite period in their development, the outcome of gut colonization in piglets is greatly influenced by the immediate environment. The implication is that mammals have a developmental window, in which the developing host-gut microbiota interaction will be simultaneously more amenable to engineering and more susceptible to disturbance.

Exposure of different bacterial inocula to newborn chicken affects gut microbiota development and ileum gene expression

“…The similarity of PCR-DGGE profiling was analyzed using Quantity One software with a match tolerance of 2% (Version 4.6.1; BIO-RAD Laboratories Inc., Hercules, CA, USA). Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the bandmatching matrix and Dice's similarity coefficient was calculated as previously described (Thompson et al, 2008).…”

“…The factors that determine the colonization rate and composition of the intestinal microbial species are not fully understood. Recent studies showed that there is no core microbiota shared by all individuals in humans, indicating that environmental exposure at an early stage of life may have an important role in shaping the intestinal microbiota (Thompson et al, 2008;Turnbaugh et al, 2009).…”

“…All environmental microorganisms, including commensals and pathogens, would have equal opportunities to colonize the gut during this period of time (Thompson et al, 2008). To prevent pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter from colonizing, commercial competitive-exclusion products have been developed for the neonatal animals (Pivnick and Nurmi, 1982;Schneitz, 2005).…”

Administration of non-pathogenic isolates of Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens type A to piglets in a herd affected with a high incidence of neonatal diarrhoea

“…The amount, composition and metabolism of these early colonizing microbial species in the gastrointestinal tract have a strong impact on the piglets' postnatal development (Mazmanian et al, 2005). The outcome of gut colonization in piglets is highly dependent on the microbial load of the environment and, therefore, influenced by hygiene measures (Thompson et al, 2008;Schokker et al, 2014). It was shown that the load with C. perfringens and E. coli in the early gut flora of newborn piglets was higher and of lower homogeneity compared with the gut flora at the end of the suckling period.…”

Developmental microbial ecology of the crop of the folivorous hoatzin

“…In the cow rumen, the complex strict anaerobic community develops only after weaning (Hungate, 1975). The colonization of the digestive tract can be affected by diet (Hidaka et al, 1986;Ito et al, 1990;Donovan and Odle, 1994), mode of delivery (Grö nlund et al, 1999) and environmental factors including stress (Bailey et al, 2004;Thompson et al, 2008), and the complex establishment of the organ microbiota can now be studied in due detail with powerful molecular tools. We hypothesized that mechanisms of bacterial succession occur in the crop during the transition from chicks to adults that develop the crop into a more complex and diverse ecosystem.…”