Modulation of cecal microbiota in laying hens via intake of genetically modified corn with the maroACC or mCry1Ac genes.

Abstract

The present study investigated the chronic effect on the composition and proportions of the cecal microbiota of laying hens for 12 weeks after consuming two genetically modified (GM) corns containing the maroACC gene from the Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain (CC) and the mCry1Ac gene from the Bacillus thuringiensis strain (BT) in comparison with the isogenic corn (CT). In total, 72 hens were randomly assigned to the CT corn-based diet, CC corn-based diet and BT corn-based diet. The absolute weights of abdominal fat, breast, thigh meat and organ weight were not affected by the dietary treatment. High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed a few differences in the composition of cecal microbiota among the treatments. The only difference with respect to bacterial family was that the cecal abundance of Porphyromonadaceae (3.46 versus 2.11%; P = 0.073) tended to be higher for birds consuming the CC diet than those birds consuming the CT diet. Birds fed the BT diet tended to have a higher abundance of Barnesiella (0.62 versus 0.13%; P = 0.057) and a lower abundance of unclassified Ruminococcaceae (0.64 versus 1.19%; P = 0.097) than those fed the CT diet. Considering beneficial intestinal Barnesiella, this decreases and ultimately clears the colonization of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus. The unclassified Ruminococcaceae was a low-frequency and low-abundance bacterial taxa and was not associated with intestinal pathology. These results indicate a similar modulation of cecal microbiota in laying hens by long-term feeding among transgenic CC corn, BT corn and non-transgenic corn and provide data for biosafety evaluation of the transgenic corn. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.