Abstract

The characterization of the microbial population of many niches of the organism, as the gastrointestinal tract, is now possible thanks to the use of high-throughput DNA sequencing technique. Several studies in the companion animals field already investigated faecal microbiome in healthy or affected subjects, although the methodologies used in the different laboratories and the limited number of animals recruited in each experiment does not allow a straight comparison among published results. In the present study, we report data collected from several in house researches carried out in healthy dogs, with the aim to seek for a variability of microbial taxa in the faeces, caused by factors such as diet and sex. The database contains 340 samples from 132 dogs, collected serially during dietary intervention studies. The procedure of samples collection, storage, DNA extraction and sequencing, bioinformatic and statistical analysis followed a standardized pipeline. Microbial profiles of faecal samples have been analyzed applying dimensional reduction discriminant analysis followed by random forest analysis to the relative abundances of genera in the feces as variables. The results supported the responsiveness of microbiota at a genera taxonomic level to dietary factor and allowed to cluster dogs according this factor with high accuracy. Also sex factor clustered dogs, with castrated males and spayed females forming a separated group in comparison to intact dogs, strengthening the hypothesis of a bidirectional interaction between microbiota and endocrine status of the host. The findings of the present analysis are promising for a better comprehension of the mechanisms that regulate the connection of the microorganisms living the gastrointestinal tract with the diet and the host. This preliminary study deserves further investigation for the identification of the factors affecting faecal microbiome in dogs.

Highlights

  • The age was not used for classification purposes, since is not straight to compare the age of dogs behaving to different breeds

  • A collection of 16S rRNA data were used to investigate if diet composition and sex affected fecal microbial community in healthy dogs

  • The association of discriminant analysis with learning machine indicated that diet and sex are factors inferring fecal microbiome and that dogs can be clustered on the basis of them

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Summary

Objectives

We are aware that this can be a limitation for the current classification, the aim of this study was to develop a model more than assessing a precise identification of diet responsive and core faecal microbiome in dogs, which deserves further investigations

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