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. 2018 Nov 19;57(2):113–121. doi: 10.1007/s12275-019-8549-1

Rotavirus-mediated alteration of gut microbiota and its correlation with physiological characteristics in neonatal calves

Ja-Young Jang 1,#, Suhee Kim 2,#, Min-Sung Kwon 1, Jieun Lee 1, Do-Hyeon Yu 3, Ru-Hui Song 4, Hak-Jong Choi 1,✉, Jinho Park 4,✉
PMCID: PMC7090552  PMID: 30456757

Abstract

Diarrhea is a fatal disease to neonatal calves, and rotavirus is the main pathogen associated with neonatal calf diarrhea. Although previous studies have reported that the gut microbiota is changed in calves during diarrhea, less is known about whether rotavirus infection alters the structure of the gut microbiota. Here, we characterized fecal microbial communities and identified possible relationships between the gut microbiota profiles and physiological parameters. Five fecal specimens of rotavirus-infected calves from 1 to 30 days after birth and five fecal specimens of age-matched healthy calves were used for the microbial community analysis using the Illumina MiSeq sequencer. Rotavirus infection was associated with reduced rotavirus infection significantly reduced the richness and diversity of the bacterial community. Weighted unique fraction metric analysis exhibited significant differences in community membership and structure between healthy and rotavirus-infected calves. Based on relative abundance analysis and linear discriminant analysis effect size, we found that the representative genera from Lactobacillus, Subdoligranulum, Blautia, and Bacteroides were closely related to healthy calves, while the genera Escherichia and Clostridium were closely affiliated to rotavirus-infected calves. Furthermore, canonical correlation analysis and Pearson correlation coefficient results revealed that the increased relative abundances of Lactobacillus, Subdoligranulum, and Bacteroides were correlated with normal levels of physiological characteristics such as white blood cells, blood urea nitrogen, serum amyloid protein A, and glucose concentration in serum. These results suggest that rotavirus infection alters the structure of the gut microbiota, correlating changes in physiological parameters. This study provides new information on the relationship between gut microbiota and the physiological parameters of rotavirus-mediated diarrheic calves.

Keywords: diarrhea, rotavirus, gut microbiota, physiological parameters

Footnotes

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Contributor Information

Hak-Jong Choi, Phone: +82-62-610-1729, FAX: +82-62-610-1850, Email: hjchoi@wikim.re.kr.

Jinho Park, Phone: +82-63-850-0949, FAX: +82-63-850-0910, Email: jpark@jbnu.ac.kr.

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