For example, the elevated abundance of genes associated with protein turnover in pigs, chicken, and cow gut metagenomes is consistent with an increased use of amino acids for protein accretion in food production animals and is also consistent with the high protein diet fed to the pigs in this study.
Additionally, the high abundance and diversity of carbohydrate utilization subsystems found in this swine metagenome may be a result of the high level of complex buy Opaganib polysaccharides found in the diet. Altogether these data suggest that agricultural animal husbandry practices can impose significant selective pressures on the gut microbiota, regardless of gut type. Surprisingly, this pig fecal
metagenome revealed the presence of motile Treponema and Anaerovibrio genera. The presence of sequences associated with Treponema in this study (i.e., 3-4% of all sequences swine fecal metagenome) suggests an order of magnitude higher abundance than a previous study in which swine gut microbiota revealed a very low abundance of Spirochetes using a culture independent method (i.e., 0.3% of all phylotypes) [14]. This genus has been previously detected in swine colonic samples but their presence in elevated levels is normally associated with swine dysentery. Discrepancies in community composition between cloning-based methods CH5424802 concentration and non-cloning based methods have been reported in the literature, primarily attributed to PCR amplification biases [28, 29]. While many mammalian gut microbial communities are dominated by non-motile microbes, the termite hindgut and the fish gut harbor motile populations of bacteria,
which are known to possess complex social behaviors [12, 30, 31]. This study revealed PJ34 HCl the pig gut may harbor previously unknown social dynamics, which may be relevant for maintaining compartmentalization and promoting niche selection within monogastric systems. Conclusions Herein, we report the first shotgun metagenomic pyrosequencing approach to study the microbiome of the swine distal gut. The overall goal of this study was to characterize the swine fecal microbiome with respect to species composition and functional content. Comparative metagenomic analyses identified unique and/or overabundant taxonomic and functional elements within swine distal gut microbiomes. These genetic attributes may help us better understand the microbial genetic factors that are relevant to swine health. Genes associated with the variable portion of gut microbiomes clustered by host environment with surprising hierarchical trends, suggesting that the variable microbiome content of a given host species may be reflective of the host ecology.