Development of a phylogenetic microarray for comprehensive analysis of ruminal bacterial communities

Metagenomic investigation of gastrointestinal microbiome in cattle

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract, including the rumen and the other intestinal segments of cattle, harbors a diverse, complex, and dynamic microbiome that drives feed digestion and fermentation in cattle, determining feed efficiency and output of pollutants. This microbiome also plays an important role in affecting host health. Research has been conducted for more than a century to understand the microbiome and its relationship to feed efficiency and host health. The traditional cultivation-based research elucidated some of the major metabolism, but studies using molecular biology techniques conducted from late 1980’s to the late early 2000’s greatly expanded our view of the diversity of the rumen and intestinal microbiome of cattle. Recently, metagenomics has been the primary technology to characterize the GI microbiome and its relationship with host nutrition and health. This review addresses the main methods/techniques in current use, the knowledge gained, and some of the challenges that remain. Most of the primers used in quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction quantification and diversity analysis using metagenomics of ruminal bacteria, archaea, fungi, and protozoa were also compiled.

Essential oils affect populations of some rumen bacteria in vitro as revealed by microarray (RumenBactArray) analysis

In a previous study origanum oil (ORO), garlic oil (GAO), and peppermint oil (PEO) were shown to effectively lower methane production, decrease abundance of methanogens, and change abundances of several bacterial populations important to feed digestion in vitro. In this study, the impact of these essential oils (EOs, at 0.50 g/L) on the rumen bacterial community composition and population was further examined using the recently developed RumenBactArray. Species richness (expressed as number of operational taxonomic units, OTUs) in the phylum Firmicutes, especially those in the class Clostridia, was decreased by ORO and GAO, but increased by PEO, while that in the phylum Bacteroidetes was increased by ORO and PEO. Species richness in the genus Butyrivibrio was lowered by all the EOs. Increases of Bacteroidetes OTUs mainly resulted from increases of Prevotella OTUs. Overall, 67 individual OTUs showed significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) in relative abundance across the EO treatments. The predominant OTUs affected by EOs were diverse, including those related to Syntrophococcus sucromutans, Succiniclasticum ruminis, and Lachnobacterium bovis, and those classified to Prevotella, Clostridium, Roseburia, Pseudobutyrivibrio, Lachnospiraceae, Ruminococcaceae, Prevotellaceae, Bacteroidales, and Clostridiales. In total, 60 OTUs were found significantly (P ≤ 0.05) correlated with feed degradability, ammonia concentration, and molar percentage of volatile fatty acids. Taken together, this study demonstrated extensive impact of EOs on rumen bacterial communities in an EO type-dependent manner, especially those in the predominant families Prevotellaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Ruminococcaceae. The information from this study may aid in understanding the effect of EOs on feed digestion and fermentation by rumen bacteria.