Dataset Information

The dysbiosis of ovine foot microbiome during the development and treatment of contagious ovine digital dermatitis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Contagious Ovine Digital Dermatitis (CODD) is an emerging and common infectious foot disease of sheep which causes severe welfare and economic problems for the sheep industry. The aetiology of the disease is not fully understood and control of the disease is problematic. The aim of this study was to investigate the polybacterial aetiopathogenesis of CODD and the effects of antibiotic treatment, in a longitudinal study of an experimentally induced disease outbreak using a 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing approach.

Results

CODD was induced in 15/30 experimental sheep. During the development of CODD three distinct phenotypic lesion stages were observed. These were an initial interdigital dermatitis (ID) lesion, followed by a footrot (FR) lesion, then finally a CODD lesion. Distinct microbiota were observed for each lesion in terms of microbial diversity, clustering and composition. Porphyromonadaceae, Family XI, Veillonellaceae and Fusobacteriaceae were significantly associated with the diseased feet. Veillonellaceae and Fusobacteriaceae were most associated with the earlier stages of ID and footrot rather than CODD. Following antibiotic treatment of the sheep, the foot microbiota showed a strong tendency to return to the composition of the healthy state. The microbiota composition of CODD lesions collected by swab and biopsy methods were different. In particular, the Spirochaetaceae family were more abundant in samples collected by the biopsy method, suggesting that these bacteria are present in deeper tissues of the diseased foot.

Conclusion

In this study, CODD presented as part of a spectrum of poly-bacterial foot disease strongly associated with bacterial families Porphyromonadaceae, Family XI (a family in Clostridiales also known as Clostridium cluster XI), Veillonellaceae and Fusobacteriaceae which are predominately Gram-negative anaerobes. Following antibiotic treatment, the microbiome showed a strong tendency to return to the composition of the healthy state. The composition of the healthy foot microbiome does not influence susceptibility to CODD. Based on the data presented here and that CODD appears to be the severest end stage of sheep infectious foot disease lesions, better control of the initial ID and FR lesions would enable better control of CODD and enable better animal welfare.

SUBMITTER: Duncan JS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7888161 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The dysbiosis of ovine foot microbiome during the development and treatment of contagious ovine digital dermatitis.

Duncan J S JS Angell J W JW Richards P P Lenzi L L Staton G J GJ Grove-White D D Clegg S S Oikonomou G G Carter S D SD Evans N J NJ

Animal microbiome 20210217 1

<h4>Background</h4>Contagious Ovine Digital Dermatitis (CODD) is an emerging and common infectious foot disease of sheep which causes severe welfare and economic problems for the sheep industry. The aetiology of the disease is not fully understood and control of the disease is problematic. The aim of this study was to investigate the polybacterial aetiopathogenesis of CODD and the effects of antibiotic treatment, in a longitudinal study of an experimentally induced disease outbreak using a 16S r ...[more]

PMID: 33597028

Similar Datasets

Project description:Contagious ovine digital dermatitis (CODD) is a severe and common infectious foot disease of sheep and a significant animal welfare issue for the sheep industry in the UK and some European countries. The etiology and pathogenesis of the disease are incompletely understood. In this longitudinal, experimental study, CODD was induced in 18 sheep, and for the first time, the clinical lesion development and associated microbiological changes in CODD affected feet are described over time, resulting in a completely new understanding of the etiopathogenesis of CODD. The majority of CODD lesions (83.9%) arose from pre-existing interdigital dermatitis (ID) and/or footrot (FR) lesions. All stages of foot disease were associated with high levels of poly-bacterial colonization with five pathogens, which were detected by quantitative PCR (qPCR): Treponema medium, Treponema phagedenis, Treponema pedis, Dichelobacter nodosus, and Fusobacterium necrophorum. Temporal colonization patterns showed a trend for early colonization by T. phagedenis, followed by F. necrophorum and D. nodosus, T. medium, and then T. pedis, D. nodosus was present at significantly higher predicted mean log10 genome copy numbers in FR lesions compared to both ID and CODD, while Treponema species were significantly higher in CODD and FR lesions compared to ID lesions (p < 0.001). Treatment of CODD-affected sheep with two doses of 10 mg/kg long acting amoxicillin resulted in a 91.7% clinical cure rate by 3 weeks post-treatment; however, a bacteriological cure was not established for all CODD-affected feet. The study found that in an infected flock, healthy feet, healed CODD feet, and treated CODD feet can be colonized by some or all of the five pathogens associated with CODD and therefore could be a source of continued infection in flocks. The study is an experimental study, and the findings require validation in field CODD cases. However, it does provide a new understanding of the etiopathogenesis of CODD and further supportive evidence for the importance of current advice on the control of CODD; namely, ensuring optimum flock control of footrot and prompt isolation and effective treatment of clinical cases.

Project description:Purpose, aims and objectives: Bovine digital dermatitis (BDD) is a painful and ulcerative, inflammatory, infectious disease of digital skin in dairy and beef cattle and is one of the most economically important causes of severe cattle lameness worldwide. A polytreponemal aetiology has been consistently implicated in BDD pathogenesis with three key phylogroups implicated globally: Treponema medium, Treponema phagedenis and Treponema pedis. This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that the three Treponema phylogroups implement distict mechanisms of pathogenesis within cells of the bovine foot skin tissue during infection. Using a next generation RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) approach, the dysregulation of global mRNA expression was investigated in primary bovine foot skin fibroblasts following challenge with representative strains of the three predominant BDD Treponema phylogroups (T19, T320A and T3552B respectively). Transcriptome profiles were compared to that of a commensal treponeme, Treponema ruminis strain Ru1, in attempts to identify pathogenic signatures. Results and conclusions: Here, for the first time, we implicate fibroblasts as a likely source of interleukin-8 dysregulation in BDD lesions. Despite treponemes reportedly having atypical LPS, a strong pro-inflammatory response was elicited by the BDD treponemes in a similar manner to the Gram-negative LPS control, which appeared to be mediated through interleukin-17 signalling. Along with interleukin-17, several interesting gene targets were identified which may help to inform and drive future vaccine development and therapeutic approaches; particularly those of RGS16, GRO1, MAFF and ZC3H12A, which were only stimulated by BDD treponemes. Interestingly, the three BDD treponemes were found to elicit very distinct mechanisms of pathogenesis in fibroblasts. T. phagedenis and T. pedis spirochaetes were found to upregulate several genes associated with apoptosis. Both T. medium and T. pedis spirochaetes, but notably not T. phagedenis, stimulated genes associated with actin rearrangement and a loss of cell adhesion, which may promote their persistence and deeper invasion within host tissues. The upregulation of antimicrobial peptide precursor, DEFB123, by T. phagedenis spirochaetes may present a microbial ecological advantage to all treponemes within BDD infected tissue, explaining their dominance within lesions. Interestingly, T. medium phylogroup was the least stimulatory and appeared to induce immunosuppression via the dysregulation of genes such as TSC22D3. Together with findings that the commensal, T. ruminis, significantly dysregulated over three times the number of host genes compared to each BDD treponeme; this suggests that, alike the syphilis pathogen (Treponema pallidum), BDD treponemes have evolved to become “stealth pathogens” and avoid triggering a substantial host immune/inflammatory response to promote persistence and facilitate invasion of host tissues. Overall, this study has highlighted the complexities of BDD pathogenesis; three key Treponema phylogroups appear to elicit very distinct mechanisms of pathogenesis in bovine foot skin cells. Several interesting gene targets have been identified from this study which may help to inform and drive future vaccine development and therapeutic approaches.

Dataset Information

The dysbiosis of ovine foot microbiome during the development and treatment of contagious ovine digital dermatitis.

Background

Results

Conclusion

Publications

The dysbiosis of ovine foot microbiome during the development and treatment of contagious ovine digital dermatitis.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets