Abstract
The gut microbiome plays a key role in animal health and metabolism through the intricate functional interconnection between the feed, gut microbes, and the host. Unfortunately, in aquaculture, the links between gut microbes and fish genetics and production phenotypes are not well understood.In this study, we investigate the associations between gut microbial communities, fish feed conversion, and fish genetics in the domestic Atlantic salmon. Microbial community composition was determined for 230 juvenile fish from 23 full-sib families and was then regressed on growth, carbon and nitrogen metabolism, and feed efficiency. We only found weak associations between host genetics and microbial composition. However, we did identify significant (p < 0.05) associations between the abundance of three microbial operational taxonomical units (OTUs) and fish metabolism phenotypes. Two OTUs were associated with both carbon metabolism in adipose tissue and feed efficiency, while a third OTU was associated with weight gain.In conclusion, this study demonstrates an intriguing association between host lipid metabolism and the gut microbiota composition in Atlantic salmon.8sB4iTLoryZp12NTVevPHhVideo
Highlights
Efficient and environmentally sustainable animal production systems are urgently required to ensure longterm food security, especially as global aquaculture consumption is projected to double by 2050
In humans and other vertebrate systems, the gut microbiome plays a central role in the path from “feed-to-animal” [1,2,3,4], and recent studies have shown that host-genetic factors can modulate microbiome composition
To address this pressing knowledge gap, we use a family-based experimental design to test if variation in the gut microbiome composition in juvenile Atlantic salmon is associated with key phenotypes related to host metabolism as well as variation in host genetics
Summary
Efficient and environmentally sustainable animal production systems are urgently required to ensure longterm food security, especially as global aquaculture consumption is projected to double by 2050 (www.fao.org). In humans and other vertebrate systems, the gut microbiome plays a central role in the path from “feed-to-animal” [1,2,3,4], and recent studies have shown that host-genetic factors can modulate microbiome composition. Such functional interconnection between feed, microbes, and host (i.e., the feed-microbiome-host axis) opens up intriguing avenues for optimizing aquaculture production systems, for. Our results identified phenotypic associations between host gut microbiome and lipid metabolism, growth, as well as to feed efficiency, which open the possibility for metabolic modulation through the gut microbiota
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