The underlying microbial mechanism of epizootic rabbit enteropathy triggered by a low fiber diet
Date
2018-08-21
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Nature Research
Abstract
Epizootic rabbit enteropathy (ERE) is reproduced successfully in the present study by feeding rabbits a
low-fibre diet, and high-throughput sequencing and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) analysis were
applied to examine the microbial variations in the stomach, small intestine and caecum. The evenness
was disturbed and the richness was decreased in the ERE groups. When the rabbits were suffering from
ERE, the abundance of the Firmicutes was decreased in three parts of the digestive tract, whereas the
Proteobacteria was increased in the stomach and caecum, the Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia were
increased in the small intestine. Correlation analysis showed that the reduced concentrations of TVFA
and butyrate in the caeca of the ERE group were attributed to the decreased abundances of genera
such as Lactobacillus, Alistipes and other fibrolytic bacteria and butyrate- producing bacteria such as
Eubacterium and Faecalibacterium. It is concluded that, in terms of microorganisms, the overgrowth
of Bacteroides fragilis, Clostridium perfringen, Enterobacter sakazakii and Akkermansia muciniphila
and inhibition of Bifidobacterium spp. and Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens in the stomach, small intestine and
caecum resulted in a decrease in butyrate yield, leading to the incidence of ERE, and the probability of
developing ERE could be manipulated by adjusting the dietary fibre level.
Description
Publication history: Accepted - 24 July 2018; Published online - 21 August 2018.
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Citation
in, D. X., Zou, H. W., Liu, S. Q., Wang, L. Z., Xue, B., Wu, D., Tian, G., Cai, J., Yan, T. H., Wang, Z. S. and Peng, Q. H. (2018) ‘The underlying microbial mechanism of epizootic rabbit enteropathy triggered by a low fiber diet’, Scientific Reports, 8(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-30178-2.