Abstract
BackgroundHost genetic makeup plays a role in early gut microbial colonization and immune programming. Interactions between gut microbiota and host cells of the mucosal layer are of paramount importance for a proper development of host defence mechanisms. For different livestock species, it has already been shown that particular genotypes have increased susceptibilities towards disease causing pathogens.The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of genotypic variation on both early microbial colonization of the gut and functional development of intestinal tissue. From two genetically diverse chicken lines intestinal content samples were taken for microbiota analyses and intestinal tissue samples were extracted for gene expression analyses, both at three subsequent time-points (days 0, 4, and 16).ResultsThe microbiota composition was significantly different between lines on each time point. In contrast, no significant differences were observed regarding changes in the microbiota diversity between the two lines throughout this study. We also observed trends in the microbiota data at genus level when comparing lines X and Y. We observed that approximately 2000 genes showed different temporal gene expression patterns when comparing line X to line Y. Immunological related differences seem to be only present at day 0, because at day 4 and 16 similar gene expression is observed for these two lines. However, for genes involved in cell cycle related processes the data show higher expression over the whole course of time in line Y in comparison to line X.ConclusionsThese data suggest the genetic background influences colonization of gut microbiota after hatch in combination with the functional development of intestinal mucosal tissue, including the programming of the immune system. The results indicate that genetically different chicken lines have different coping mechanisms in early life to cope with the outside world.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1646-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Host genetic makeup plays a role in early gut microbial colonization and immune programming
Performance data Body weight (Fig. 1) and Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR; Table 1) were measured in time, in order to generate a representative view of the whole life of a broiler
Microbiota analyses To investigate the differences between the two broiler lines regarding their microbiota, both redundancy (Fig. 2) and diversity analyses (Fig. 3) were performed
Summary
Host genetic makeup plays a role in early gut microbial colonization and immune programming. Schokker et al BMC Genomics (2015) 16:418 influence energy retention and can predispose to obesity [6, 7] They play a role in the renewal of gut epithelial cells and its barrier function [8, 9], the breakdown of toxins [10], the exclusion of pathogens [11], and the programming and development of the immune system [12]. Microbiota colonization occurs immediately after hatch, both microbiota from the egg shell and environment form the first inoculum of the chickens [13] The characteristics of this first inoculum is of utmost importance because it impacts the further colonization of microbiota and simultaneously the functional development of the intestinal tissue in terms of barrier function and in terms of immune programming [13, 14]. Around day 14, intestinal segments have different functional properties and harbour distinctive microbiota compositions [19]
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