ТАКСОНОМИЧЕСКАЯ И ФУНКЦИОНАЛЬНАЯ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА МИКРОБИОТЫ РУБЦА ЛАКТИРУЮЩИХ КОРОВ ПОД ВЛИЯНИЕМ ПРОБИОТИКА ЦЕЛЛОБАКТЕРИНА+

Abstract

Today rations for dairy cows are designed to provide the highest growth rate and productivity in a short period of time. However, such intensive livestock farming affects, first of all, the health of animals, since metabolic pathways inherent in ruminants are disrupted. The use of 16S metagenomics approaches makes it possible to assess the genetic and metabolic diversity of the bovine microbiome, which allows identifying factors that can contribute to an increase in productivity and an improvement in the health of the host. In the feeding trial, dairy cows were fed with dietary probiotic Cellobacterin+ based on the Enterococcus faecium 1-35 strain (the winter-spring period of 2018, JSC PZ Plamya, Gatchinsky District, Leningrad Province). Two groups of ten Holsteinized black-and-white dairy cows (Bos taurus taurus) of the 2nd and 3rd lactation with an average annual milk yield of 7000-7500 kg were used. The basal diet was 10 kg compound feed, 2 kg yellow corn, 0.5 kg sunflower cake, 0.5 kg rapeseed cake, 1 kg hay, 25 kg grass silage, 1 kg beet molasses, and 0.2 kg MINVIT®-3 (Russia). In the morning, the test cows were fed with dietary Cellobacterin+ (OOO BIOTROF, St. Petersburg) at 40 g per cow. Cicatricial contents (10-50 g) were collected from three cows of each group at the end of the experiment. Fasting blood was taken for biochemical analysis from the tail vein with vacutainers. The blood was analyzed for total protein, total bilirubin, glucose, calcium, phosphorus, urea, reserve alkalinity, ketone bodies. The mass fraction of fat in milk was analyzed according to GOST 5867-90, protein according to GOST 23327-98, and the number of somatic cells according to GOST R 54761-2011. Total DNA from the studied samples was extracted using the Genomic DNA Purification Kit (Fermentas, Inc., Lithuania) according to the attached instructions. Amplification for subsequent NGS sequencing was run (a Veriti Thermal Cycler, Life Technologies, Inc., USA) using the eubacterial primers (IDT) 343F (5´-CTCCTACGGRRSGCAGCAG-3´) and 806R (5´-GGACTANVGGGTWTCTAAT-3´) flanking the V1V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Metagenomic sequencing (a MiSeq system, Illumina, Inc., USA) was performed with a MiSeq Reagent Kit v3 (Illumina, Inc., USA). Chimeric sequences were excluded from analysis using the USEARCH 7.0 program (http://drive5.com/usearch/). The processing of the obtained reads using the bioinformatics platform CLC Bio GW 7.0 (Qiagen, the Netherlands) included overlapping, quality filtering (QV > 15), and primer trimming. The taxonomic affiliation of microorganisms to genus was determined using the RDP Classifier program (http://rdp.cme.msu.edu/). Mathematical and statistical processing of the results was carried out using the software packages Microsoft Office Excel 2003, R-Studio (Version 1.1.453) (https://rstudio.com). The mean values (M) and standard errors of the means (±SEM) were calculated. The results were deemed significant at p < 0.05. Analysis of microbial β-diversity of the samples by the principal component method was performed according to the Weighted UniFrac PCoA Emperor method using the QIIME software package. Reconstruction and prediction of the functional content of the metagenome, gene families, and enzymes was performed using the PICRUSt2 software package (v.2.3.0). MetaCyc database (https://metacyc.org/) was used to analyze metabolic pathways and enzymes. Feeding the probiotic had a significant effect (p = 0.049) on an increase in milk yield, as well as on a decrease (p = 0.003) in the somatic cell number in milk by 38,000/ml per cow. The NGS sequencing provided a complete taxonomic and functional characterization of the cicatricial microbiota, including uncultivated representatives. Significant differences were found between the groups for 13 bacterial genera. In particular, in the rumen of cows treated with the probiotic Cellobacterin+, compared to the control group, a lower proportion of the order Clostridia were found, namely the bacteria of the genera Anaerofilum sp. (2.3 times lower, p ≤ 0.05) and Anaerostipes sp. (1.8 times lower, p ≤ 0.05) that produce lactate in the rumen as the end product of glucose metabolism. A decrease occurred in the abundance of the genera Campylobacter, Gemella, Mycoplasma, Shewanella (p ≤ 0.05), and Fusobacterium (including F. necrophorum) (p ≤ 0.001) among which pathogens are often found. Changes in the taxonomic structure of rumen microbiota as influenced by the probiotic were also associated with metabolic changes. The predicted functional potential of seven metabolic pathways was enhanced in cows fed Cellobacterin+ compared to the control animals. Thus, when fed Cellobacterin+, there was a 3.5-fold increase (p ≤ 0.05) in the predicted level of microbiome metabolic capabilities associated with the synthesis of glyoxylate from allantoin, and 2.3-fold increase (p ≤ 0.05) in the biosynthesis of propionate from L-glutamate. These findings allow us to suggest an important role of the biological product Cellobacterin+ for maintaining the homeostasis of metabolic processes.