Early fecal microbiota transplantation from high abdominal fat chickens affects recipient cecal microbiome and metabolism

Jiani Song; Chaowei Luo; Zhijie Liu; Jingshou Liu; Li Xie; Xing Zhang; Zhuojun Xie; Xiangkun Li; Zheng Ma; Jinlong Ding; Hua Li; Hai Xiang

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1332230

Early fecal microbiota transplantation from high abdominal fat chickens affects recipient cecal microbiome and metabolism

Front Microbiol. 2024 Jan 8:14:1332230. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1332230. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jiani Song^#¹, Chaowei Luo^#¹, Zhijie Liu¹, Jingshou Liu², Li Xie¹, Xing Zhang¹, Zhuojun Xie¹, Xiangkun Li¹, Zheng Ma¹, Jinlong Ding², Hua Li^{1

2}, Hai Xiang¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Molecular Design and Precise Breeding, School of Life Science and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, China.
² Guangdong Tinoo's Foods Group Co., Ltd., Guangdong, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Abdominal fat deposition (AFD) in chickens is closely related to the gut microecological balance. In this study, the gut microbiota from high-AFD chickens was transplanted into the same strain of 0-day-old chicks via fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). The FTM from chickens with high AFD had no obvious effects on growth traits, adult body weight, carcass weight, abdominal fat weight, and abdominal fat percentage, but did reduce the coefficient of variation of AFD traits. FMT significantly decreased cecal microbiome richness, changed the microbiota structure, and regulated the biological functions associated with energy metabolism and fat synthesis. Additionally, the cecal metabolite composition and metabolic function of FMT recipient chickens were also significantly altered from those of the controls. Transplantation of high-AFD chicken gut microbiota promoted fatty acid elongation and biosynthesis and reduced the metabolism of vitamins, steroids, and carbohydrates in the cecum. These findings provide insights into the mechanisms by which chicken gut microbiota affect host metabolic profiles and fat deposition.

Keywords: cecal microbiome; chickens; fatty acids; fecal microbiota transplantation; gut microbiota.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was funded by the Major Projects in Agricultural Biology Breeding (2023ZD04064), the Science and Technology Foundation of Qingyuan City (2021SXJM01) and the National Natural Science Foundations of China (32002156 and 32102538). The funding bodies contributed nothing to the study design, data analyses, data interpretation, or manuscript preparation.