214 Correlation among host gut microbiome and their relationship with meat quality and carcass composition traits of swine

Abstract

Abstract Study on correlation among host gut microbiome and their relationship with meat quality and carcass composition traits remains limited. The objectives of this study were 1) to estimate the microbial correlation between meat quality and carcass traits; and 2) to estimate the genetic correlation between microbial alpha diversity, and meat quality and carcass traits in commercial swine population. Data were collected from Duroc sired three-way cross individuals (n = 1,123) genotyped with 60K SNP chips. Fecal 16S microbial sequences for all individuals were obtained at three different stages: weaning (WEAN: 18.64 ± 1.09 days); week 15 (W_15: 118.2 ± 1.18 days); and off test (OT: 196.4 ± 7.80 days). Alpha diversity was measured at each stage [WEAN (alpha_w), W_15 (alpha_15) and OT (alpha_off)] using the Shannon index, which was computed as: ∑ ni=1piln(pi) where pi was the proportional abundance of ith operational taxonomic unit. Microbial correlations were estimated using multi-trait model, which included fixed effects of dam line, contemporary group and sex, as well as random effects of pen, additive genetic and microbiome. Bivariate analyses were conducted between different traits and alpha_w, alpha_15 and alpha_off with the same fixed effects and random pen and additive genetic effect. Analyses were conducted in ASREML v.4. Microbial correlations ranged from -0.93 ± 0.11 between firmness and slice shear force to 0.97 ± 0.02 between carcass average daily gain (CADG) and loin weight. For meat quality traits, correlations were weak, except for alpha_15 with Minolta a* (-0.45±0.19). Alpha_15 showed weak correlations except with CADG (-0.43±0.19). All correlations between alpha_ot and growth, carcass and meat quality traits were weak. These results may establish a newer approach of genetic evaluation process by utilizing gut microbiome information.