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. 2017 Aug 16;12(8):e0182235.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182235. eCollection 2017.

Natural and artificial feeding management before weaning promote different rumen microbial colonization but not differences in gene expression levels at the rumen epithelium of newborn goats

Leticia Abecia  1 , Elisabeth Jiménez  1 , Gonzalo Martínez-Fernandez  1   2 , A Ignacio Martín-García  1 , Eva Ramos-Morales  1   3 , Eric Pinloche  3 , Stuart E Denman  2 , C Jamie Newbold  3 , David R Yáñez-Ruiz  1
Affiliations

Natural and artificial feeding management before weaning promote different rumen microbial colonization but not differences in gene expression levels at the rumen epithelium of newborn goats

Leticia Abecia et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of feeding management during the first month of life (natural with the mother, NAT, or artificial with milk replacer, ART) on the rumen microbial colonization and the host innate immune response. Thirty pregnant goats carrying two fetuses were used. At birth one kid was taken immediately away from the doe and fed milk replacer (ART) while the other remained with the mother (NAT). Kids from groups received colostrum during first 2 days of life. Groups of four kids (from ART and NAT experimental groups) were slaughtered at 1, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days of life. On the sampling day, after slaughtering, the rumen content was sampled and epithelial rumen tissue was collected. Pyrosequencing analyses of the bacterial community structure on samples collected at 3, 7, 14 and 28 days showed that both systems promoted significantly different colonization patterns (P = 0.001). Diversity indices increased with age and were higher in NAT feeding system. Lower mRNA abundance was detected in TLR2, TLR8 and TLR10 in days 3 and 5 compared to the other days (7, 14, 21 and 28). Only TLR5 showed a significantly different level of expression according to the feeding system, presenting higher mRNA abundances in ART kids. PGLYRP1 showed significantly higher abundance levels in days 3, 5 and 7, and then experienced a decline independently of the feeding system. These observations confirmed a highly diverse microbial colonisation from the first day of life in the undeveloped rumen, and show that the colonization pattern substantially differs between pre-ruminants reared under natural or artificial milk feeding systems. However, the rumen epithelial immune development does not differentially respond to distinct microbial colonization patterns.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Alpha diversity measures for rumen bacteria across different feeding system the first month of life.
Total Observed taxonomic units, Chao1 estimates and Shannon diversity index. Boxplots indicate the first and third quartiles with the median value indicated as a horizontal line the whickers extend to 1.5 times the inter quartile range. NAT, natural; ART, artificial feeding management.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Principal coordinate analysis (Bray Curtis distance) comparing changes in rumen bacterial community.
(A) age within feeding system (NAT or ART). (B) feeding system within each age (3, 7, 14 and 28 days). (C) age and feeding system.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Family level taxonomic composition of the ruminal bacterial community at different ages of kids (% of sequences).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Total VFA concentration in the rumen of kids fed on natural or artificial systems.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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