Abstract
Background: Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) are important and widely distributed poultry in China. Researchers continue to pursue genetic selection for heavier quail. The intestinal microbiota plays a substantial role in growth promotion; however, the mechanisms involved in growth promotion remain unclear.Results: We generated 107.3 Gb of cecal microbiome data from ten Japanese quail, providing a series of quail gut microbial gene catalogs (1.25 million genes). We identified a total of 606 main microbial species from 1,033,311 annotated genes distributed among the ten quail. Seventeen microbial species from the genera Anaerobiospirillum, Alistipes, Barnesiella, and Butyricimonas differed significantly in their abundances between the female and male gut microbiotas. Most of the functional gut microbial genes were involved in metabolism, primarily in carbohydrate transport and metabolism, as well as some active carbohydrate-degrading enzymes. We also identified 308 antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs) from the phyla Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Euryarchaeota. Studies of the differential gene functions between sexes indicated that abundances of the gut microbes that produce carbohydrate-active enzymes varied between female and male quail. Bacteroidetes was the predominant ARG-containing phylum in female quail; Euryarchaeota was the predominant ARG-containing phylum in male quail.Conclusion: This article provides the first description of the gene catalog of the cecal bacteria in Japanese quail as well as insights into the bacterial taxa and predictive metagenomic functions between male and female quail to provide a better understanding of the microbial genes in the quail ceca.
Highlights
Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), from the order Galliformes and family Phasianidae, are an important poultry species for egg and meat production and are widely distributed in China
The gut microbiota plays an important role in production and disease resistance in many animals, especially in digestion and nutrient absorption, contributing to feed-related traits [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. 16S rRNA genes were analyzed to profile the cecal bacterial communities of chicken; these analyses showed that the male animals had high abundances of Bacteroides, whereas female animals were enriched with Clostridium and Shigella
We conducted an Illumina short-read-based gene-annotation sequencing analysis of metagenomic DNA taken from the ceca of ten Japanese quail, including five female quail and five male quail, to obtain a catalog of bacterial gene communities in adult quail
Summary
Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), from the order Galliformes and family Phasianidae, are an important poultry species for egg and meat production and are widely distributed in China. Quail have a short maturation period, and female quail can lay their first eggs at 35 days old. The laying rate can reach 50% at 45 days, and the weight of annual egg production is an average of 20–25 times that of the female quail’s body weight. Quail make ideal animal models owing to their small body size and short generation intervals. Some researchers consider quail breeding to be the future of twenty-first century poultry breeding [1, 2]. Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) are important and widely distributed poultry in China. Researchers continue to pursue genetic selection for heavier quail. The intestinal microbiota plays a substantial role in growth promotion; the mechanisms involved in growth promotion remain unclear
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