Project description:Early-weaning-induced stress causes diarrhea, thereby reduces growth performance of piglets. Gut bacterial dysbiosis emerges as a leading cause of post-weaning diarrhea. The present study was aimed to investigate the effect of capsulized fecal microbiota transportation (FMT) on gut bacterial community, immune response and gut barrier function of weaned piglets. Thirty-two were randomly divided into two groups fed with basal diet for 21 days. Recipient group was inoculated orally with capsulized fecal microbiota of health Tibetan pig daily morning during whole period of trial, while control group was given orally empty capsule. The results showed that the F/G ratio, diarrhea ratio, diarrhea index, and histological damage score of recipient piglets were significantly decreased. FMT treatment also significantly increased the colon length of piglets. Furthermore, the relative abundances of Firmicutes, Euryarchaeota, Tenericutes, Lactobacillus, Methanobrevibacter and Sarcina in colon of recipient piglets were increased, and the relative abundances of Campylobacter, Proteobacteria, and Melainabacteria were significantly decreased compared with control group.
Project description:Analysis of breast cancer survivors' gut microbiota after lifestyle intervention, during the COVID-19 lockdown, by 16S sequencing of fecal samples.
Project description:Gut microbiome research is rapidly moving towards the functional characterization of the microbiota by means of shotgun meta-omics. Here, we selected a cohort of healthy subjects from an indigenous and monitored Sardinian population to analyze their gut microbiota using both shotgun metagenomics and shotgun metaproteomics. We found a considerable divergence between genetic potential and functional activity of the human healthy gut microbiota, in spite of a quite comparable taxonomic structure revealed by the two approaches. Investigation of inter-individual variability of taxonomic features revealed Bacteroides and Akkermansia as remarkably conserved and variable in abundance within the population, respectively. Firmicutes-driven butyrogenesis (mainly due to Faecalibacterium spp.) was shown to be the functional activity with the higher expression rate and the lower inter-individual variability in the study cohort, highlighting the key importance of the biosynthesis of this microbial by-product for the gut homeostasis. The taxon-specific contribution to functional activities and metabolic tasks was also examined, giving insights into the peculiar role of several gut microbiota members in carbohydrate metabolism (including polysaccharide degradation, glycan transport, glycolysis and short-chain fatty acid production). In conclusion, our results provide useful indications regarding the main functions actively exerted by the gut microbiota members of a healthy human cohort, and support metaproteomics as a valuable approach to investigate the functional role of the gut microbiota in health and disease.