Effect of dietary n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on the composition of cecal microbiome of Lohmann hens

Abstract

Supplementation of n-3 fatty acids to poultry diets is widely acknowledged for its role in enhancing poultry products, however, little is known about the compositional responses of gut microbial communities to type and dosage of these supplements. Here, we compared the effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), supplied as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) or docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), on the composition of bacterial communities in ceca of laying hens. Corn-soybean basal diets were supplemented with either flaxseed oil (FO, ALA-rich) or marine algal biomass (MA, DHA-rich), and each supplied 0.20 and 0.60% of total n-3 PUFA in the diet. Lohmann LSL-Classic laying hens (n = 10/treatment) were randomly allocated to one of the 4 diets. After 8 weeks of feeding, blood, liver and cecal digesta samples were obtained for plasma glucose, fatty acids, and short chain fatty acids analyses, respectively. The gut bacterial communities were characterized using genomic DNA extracted from cecal contents, whereby the V3-V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene was sequenced using the Illumina Miseq® platform. Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were the predominant phyla in both the FO- and MA-fed groups. The relative abundance of Tenericutes, often associated with immunomodulation, was relatively higher (P<0.0001) in the FO than MA group. Although the relative abundance of Bacteroides was greater for the FO- than the MA-fed group, this genus was negatively correlated (P<0.05) with total n-3 PUFA in the liver at higher dosages of both FO- and MA-fed hens. Higher dose of FO (0.60%) and both dosages of MA (0.20 and 0.60%) substantially enriched several members of Firmicutes (e.g., Faecalibacterium, Clostridium and Ruminococcus) which are known to produce butyrate. Moreover, co-occurrence network analysis revealed that, in the FO 0.60- and MA 0.20-fed hens, Ruminococcaceae was the most influential taxon accounting for about 31% of the network complexity. These findings demonstrate that supplementation of different type and level of n-3 PUFA in hens′ diets could enrich microbial communities with potential role in lipid metabolism and health.