Abstract
The protozoal pathogen Tritrichomonas foetus infects the colon of domestic cats and is a major cause of chronic colitis and diarrhea. Treatment failure is common, but antibiotics may improve clinical signs in a subset of cats, leading researchers to question involvement of the colonic microbiota in disease pathogenesis. Studies performed in women with venereal Trichomonas vaginalis infections have revealed that dysbiosis of host microbiota contributes to pathogenicity with similar findings also found in mice with intestinal Tritrichomonas musculis The aim of this study was to characterize differences in the fecal microbiota of cats with and without naturally occurring T. foetus infection and in a group of kittens prior to and after experimentally induced infection. Archived fecal DNA from cats undergoing testing for T. foetus infection (n = 89) and experimentally infected kittens (n = 4; at pre-, 2 weeks, and 9 weeks post-infection) were analyzed by sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Amongst the naturally infected population, the genera Megamonas and Helicobacter were significantly increased in prevalence and abundance in cats testing positive for T. foetus infection. In the group of four experimentally infected kittens, fecal samples post-infection had significantly lower abundance of genus Dialister and Megamonas and greater abundance of the class Betaproteobacteria and family Succinivibrionaceae. We hypothesize that T. foetus promotes dysbiosis by competition for fermentable substrates used by these bacteria and that metabolic byproducts may contribute to the pathogenesis of colonic inflammation and diarrhea. Future studies are warranted for the measurement of fecal concentrations of microbial and protozoal metabolites in cats with T. foetus infection for the identification of potential therapeutic targets.
Highlights
Tritrichomonas foetus is a common cause of chronic colitis and diarrhea in domestic cats worldwide [1,2,3,4,5,6]
T. foetus infection is transmitted via the fecal-oral route and restricted in final residence to the colon where the organisms live intermixed with colonic bacteria in close proximity to the mucosa [2, 17]
To better understand the role of the colonic microbiota in the pathogenesis of T. foetus infection in cats, we characterized the fecal microbiota of 89 cats undergoing testing for natural infection
Summary
Tritrichomonas foetus is a common cause of chronic colitis and diarrhea in domestic cats worldwide [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Trichomonads are obligate parasites or commensals of anaerobic mucosa-lined body cavities such as the gastrointestinal and reproductive tract. These protozoa cause disease by a variety of mechanisms including disruption of the mucosal microenvironment [10, 11], adhesion and degradation of the mucosal barrier [12], induction of epithelial apoptosis [13, 14], and evasion of the host immune system [15, 16]. Presence of the infection results in lymphocytic, plasmacytic, and neutrophilic colitis and chronic, oftentimes lifelong, diarrhea [18]
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