Metatranscriptomic Profiling Reveals Linkages between the Active Rumen Microbiome and Feed Efficiency in Beef Cattle

• Fuyong Li ^[1] ; Le Luo Guan ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Alberta

     University of Alberta

     Canadá

     
• Localización: Applied and Environmental Microbiology, ISSN 0099-2240, Vol. 83, Nº 9, 2017
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Exploring compositional and functional characteristics of the rumen microbiome can improve the understanding of its role in rumen function and cattle feed efficiency. In this study, we applied metatranscriptomics to characterize the active rumen microbiomes of beef cattle with different feed efficiencies (efficient, n 10; inefficient, n 10) using total RNA sequencing. Active bacterial and archaeal compositions were estimated based on 16S rRNAs, and active microbial metabolic functions including carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) were assessed based on mRNAs from the same metatranscriptomic data sets. In total, six bacterial phyla (Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Spirochaetes, Cyanobacteria, and Synergistetes), eight bacterial families (Succinivibrionaceae, Prevotellaceae, Ruminococcaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Veillonellaceae, Spirochaetaceae, Dethiosulfovibrionaceae, and Mogibacteriaceae), four archaeal clades (Methanomassiliicoccales, Methanobrevibacter ruminantium, Methanobrevibacter gottschalkii, and Methanosphaera), 112 metabolic pathways, and 126 CAZymes were identified as core components of the active rumen microbiome.

    As determined by comparative analysis, three bacterial families (Lachnospiraceae, Lactobacillaceae, and Veillonellaceae) tended to be more abundant in low-feed-efficiency (inef- ficient) animals (P 0.10), and one archaeal taxon (Methanomassiliicoccales) tended to be more abundant in high-feed-efficiency (efficient) cattle (P 0.10). Meanwhile, 32 microbial metabolic pathways and 12 CAZymes were differentially abundant (linear discriminant analysis score of 2 with a P value of 0.05) between two groups. Among them, 30 metabolic pathways and 11 CAZymes were more abundant in the rumen of inefficient cattle, while 2 metabolic pathways and 1 CAZyme were more abundant in ef- ficient animals. These findings suggest that the rumen microbiomes of inefficient cattle have more diverse activities than those of efficient cattle, which may be related to the host feed efficiency variation.

    IMP