Abstract
The tight association between malnutrition and gut microbiota (GM) dysbiosis enables microbiota-targeting intervention to be a promising strategy. Thus, we used a malnourished pig model to investigate the host response and GM alterations under different diet supplementation strategies. Pigs at age of 4 weeks were fed with pure maize diet to induce malnutrition symptoms, and followed by continuous feeding with maize (Maize, n = 8) or re-feeding using either corn-soy-blend (CSB+, n = 10) or millet-soy-blend based (MSB+, n = 10) supplementary food for 3 weeks. Meanwhile, 8 pigs were fed on a standard formulated ration as control (Ref). The effect of nutritional supplementation was assessed by the growth status, blood chemistry, gastrointestinal pathology, mucosal microbiota composition and colon production of short-chain fatty acids. Compared with purely maize-fed pigs, both CSB+ and MSB+ elevated the concentrations of total protein and globulin in blood. These pigs still showed most malnutrition symptoms after the food intervention period. MSB+ had superior influence on the GM development, exhibiting better performance in both structural and functional aspects. MSB+ pigs were colonized by less Proteobacteria but more Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Lachnospira spp. Pearson's correlation analysis indicated a strong correlation between the abundance of mucosal e.g., Faecalibacterium and Lachnospira spp. and body weight, crown-rump length and total serum protein. In conclusion, the malnutrition symptoms were accompanied by an aberrant GM, and millet-based nutritional supplementation showed promising potentials to restore the reduced GM diversity implicated in pig malnutrition.
Publication types
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Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
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Animal Feed / analysis*
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Animals
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Bacteroidetes / genetics
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Bacteroidetes / growth & development
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Bacteroidetes / isolation & purification
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Biodiversity
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Blood Proteins / agonists
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Blood Proteins / metabolism
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Body Weight
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Clostridiales / genetics
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Clostridiales / growth & development
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Clostridiales / isolation & purification
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Diet / methods*
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Dysbiosis / diet therapy*
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Dysbiosis / microbiology
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Dysbiosis / pathology
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Faecalibacterium / genetics
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Faecalibacterium / growth & development
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Faecalibacterium / isolation & purification
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Fatty Acids, Volatile / biosynthesis
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Female
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Firmicutes / genetics
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Firmicutes / growth & development
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Firmicutes / isolation & purification
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Gastrointestinal Microbiome / physiology*
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Glycine max / chemistry
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Malnutrition / diet therapy*
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Malnutrition / microbiology
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Malnutrition / pathology
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Millets / chemistry*
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Proteobacteria / genetics
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Proteobacteria / growth & development
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Proteobacteria / isolation & purification
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RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
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Swine
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Verrucomicrobia / genetics
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Verrucomicrobia / growth & development
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Verrucomicrobia / isolation & purification
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Zea mays / chemistry
Substances
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Blood Proteins
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Fatty Acids, Volatile
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RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
Grants and funding
Yan Hui was supported by a PhD grant from China Scholarship Council. BGI-Shenzhen provided support in the form of salaries for authors [Xuejing Li, Yan Hui, Bingfeng Leng, Junli Ren, Yanni Song, Baojia Huang, Songling Liu, Lin Li, Yong Li, Xiaoshuang Dai, Shancen Zhao] and necessary materials. But the funders did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.