Abstract
BackgroundThe emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance in pathogens have led to a restriction on the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in animal feed in some countries. The potential negative after-effects of a ban on AGPs could be mitigated by improving animal intestinal health with prebiotic dietary fibers such as xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS). However, the mechanism(s) by which an antibiotic or prebiotic contributes to the health and growth of animals are not well understood. Here, we evaluated XOS and virginiamycin (VIRG)-mediated changes in gut microbiota of broiler chickens using pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene.ResultsThere was a significant change in the relative abundance of certain bacteria, but the overall microbial diversity was not affected by treatment with either XOS or VIRG. Supplementation of HXOS (2 g XOS/kg diet) increased the proportion of Lactobacillus genus in the cecum, whereas Propionibacterium and Corynebacterium genera were enriched in the ileum of VIRG (16 mg/kg) treated birds. Furthermore, an increase in the cecal concentrations of acetate and propionate was observed in HXOS- and VIRG-fed chickens, respectively. These two groups of birds had better feed conversion efficiencies in comparison with the control group from day 7 to 21. In addition, temporal variations in the gut microbiota were evident in the chickens of different ages.ConclusionsTreatments with XOS or VIRG modified the relative abundance but not the presence or absence of specific microbial genus. The increase in both Lactobacillus spp. and acetate production in the cecum of HXOS-treated chickens may promote intestinal health.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40168-015-0079-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance in pathogens have led to a restriction on the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in animal feed in some countries
After removing 280,537 low-quality and chimeric sequences, the average number of reads generated per chicken was 17,570 (±8,459 standard deviation (STD)) from ileal samples and 19,444 (±4,273 STD) from cecal samples, with the median read length of 402 (±93 STD) bases in all samples
6,544 distinct operational taxonomic units (OTUs) at the 97% identity level were obtained from all samples
Summary
The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance in pathogens have led to a restriction on the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in animal feed in some countries. Antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) have been widely used in poultry production to improve growth performance, feed efficiency, and overall health [1]. This practice has been discontinued in the European Union since 2006 due to increasing concern over spread of antibiotic-resistant genes to human and animal pathogens [2]. There is the need to find effective alternatives to AGPs that improve chicken health and maintain efficiency of production and safety of poultry products It is still unclear how AGPs enhance animal performance, it is believed that they mainly act on gut microbiota [4]. The effect of XOS on the gut microbiota remains unclear as previous studies have often relied on in vitro observation [13,14,15] or microbial culture methods [16] that fail to provide accurate taxonomic composition and community structure
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