Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Jan;137(1):4-13.
doi: 10.1111/jbg.12443. Epub 2019 Oct 1.

The interaction between microbiome and pig efficiency: A review

Christian Maltecca  1 , Matteo Bergamaschi  1 , Francesco Tiezzi  1
Affiliations
Review

The interaction between microbiome and pig efficiency: A review

Christian Maltecca et al. J Anim Breed Genet. 2020 Jan.

Abstract

The existence of genetic control over the abundance of particular taxa and the link of these to energy balance and growth has been documented in model organisms and humans as well as several livestock species. Preliminary evidence of the same mechanisms is currently under investigation in pigs. Future research should expand these results and elicit the extent of genetic control of the gut microbiome population in swine and its relationship with growth efficiency. The quest for a more efficient pig at the interface between the host and its metagenome rests on the central hypothesis that the gut microbiome is an essential component of the variability of growth in all living organisms. Swine do not escape this general rule, and the identification of the significance of the interaction between host and its gut microbiota in the growth process could be a game-changer in the achievement of sustainable and efficient lean meat production. Standard sampling protocols, sequencing techniques, bioinformatic pipelines and methods of analysis will be paramount for the portability of results across experiments and populations. Likewise, characterizing and accounting for temporal and spatial variability will be a necessary step if microbiome is to be utilized routinely as an aid to selection.

Keywords: genetic selection; microbiome; swine.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Aleksandrova, K., Romero-Mosquera, B., & Hernandez, V. (2017). Diet, gut microbiome and epigenetics: Emerging links with inflammatory bowel diseases and prospects for management and prevention. Nutrients, 9(9), 962. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9090962
    1. Backhed, F., Ding, H., Wang, T., Hooper, L. V., Koh, G. Y., Nagy, A., … Gordon, J. I. (2004). The gut microbiota as an environmental factor that regulates fat storage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(44), 15718-15723. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0407076101
    1. Barman, M., Unold, D., Shifley, K., Amir, E., Hung, K., Bos, N., & Salzman, N. (2008). Enteric salmonellosis disrupts the microbial ecology of the murine gastrointestinal tract. Infection and Immunity, 76(3), 907-915. https://doi.org/10.1128/IAI.01432-07
    1. Bultman, S. J. (2017). Interplay between diet, gut microbiota, epigenetic events, and colorectal cancer. Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, 61(1), 1500902. https://doi.org/10.1002/mnfr.201500902
    1. Callahan, B. J., McMurdie, P. J., & Holmes, S. P. (2017). Exact sequence variants should replace operational taxonomic units in marker-gene data analysis. The ISME Journal, 11(12), 2639-2643. https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.119

LinkOut - more resources