Structure of bacterial community in the cecum of broiler chickens in response to growth promoters

PIN VISO, N; DIAZ-CARRASCO, JM; REDONDO, E A; REDONDO, L M; FARBER, M; FERNANDEZ MIYAKAWA, ME

Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires

Congreso; IV International Society for Computational Biology Latin America Bioinformatics Conference; 2016

international Society for Computational Biology

Chicken gastrointestinal tract (GIT) harbours a very diverse microbiota. The complex structure of GIT microbiota hinders complete understanding of its role in chicken?s growth and health. A variety of additives with anti-microbial and/or growth-promoting effects are commonly added to poultry feed during commercial grow-out, yet the effects of these additives on the GIT microbiota remain largely unknown. The aim of the present study was to examine the relative effects of different feed additives in the poultry cecal microbiome at community level by using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons. One-day old Cobb chicks (n=120) were grown under controlled environmental conditions, and randomly divided in three groups: control without additives, antibiotic supplementation as a classic growth promoter used in agricultural poultry production, and tannins as an alternative growth promoter. Cecal contents from 5 chicks/treatment/day were taken at 12, 19, 26 and 30 days of age and genomic DNA was isolated. The V3−V4 hypervariable regions of the16S rRNA gene were amplified and high-throughput sequencing was performed using the Illumina MiSeq platform. Microbial community composition was analyzed using Quantitative Insights Into microbial Ecology (QIIME) software. Alpha and Beta-diversity indices were estimated for each sample. We detected significant differences in relative abundance of certain bacterial populations across treatments. Ecological metrics, including richness and diversity, were differentially altered by each dietary treatment. This study glances at the model to improve the experimental design and to go in deep using metagenomics analysis to evaluate the use of feed additives to enhance chicken production.