ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Veterinary and Zoonotic Infection
This article is part of the Research TopicUnveiling Host-Pathogen Interactions: Insights into Animal Cellular Immunity and Novel Diagnostics - Volume IIView all 24 articles
Blastocystis Infection in Tibetan Antelopes (Pantholops hodgsonii) Alter Gut Microbiota Composition and Function
Provisionally accepted
Jian Liu1Cong-Cong Lei2
Si-Yuan Qin2
He Ma3Lin-Hong Xie2Yan Liu2Jing-Hao Li2
Hong-Bo Ni3Ming-Yuan Yu2Hong-Rui Liang2Wen-Hui Shi2Ya Qin3
Jing Jiang4Wei-Lan Yan3Bei-Ni Chen4*Zhong-Yuan Li1*He-Ting Sun2*- 1Guangxi Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, College of Basic Medicine, Guilin Medical University, Guilin, China
- 2Center of Prevention and Control Biological Disaster, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Shenyang, China
- 3Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China
- 4Changchun Sci-Tech University, Changchun, China
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The gut microbiota plays an important role in host environmental adaptation, including defense against pathogens. Parasite infections can disrupt gut microbial communities and thus influence host adaptability. In this study, we analyzed 68 gut metagenomes from Tibetan antelopes (Pantholops hodgsonii) and screened for infections by four intestinal parasites — Blastocystis, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Encephalitozoon bieneusi. Among them, 26 individuals were solely infected with Blastocystis subtype ST31. Compositional analysis revealed 25 differential families, with 12 enriched in infected and 13 in healthy individuals. LEfSe further identified 38 species-level biomarkers (LDA > 2, p < 0.05), indicating a significant shift in gut microbial diversity following Blastocystis ST31 infection. Notably, the relative abundance of Arthrobacter sp. 08Y14, associated with environmental resilience, was markedly reduced in infected individuals. Functional profiling showed a decrease in metabolic diversity, with 18 CAZy families detected in the healthy group but only 2 in the infected group. KEGG analysis showed that the average relative abundance of K07497 was higher in the infected group (5.16) than in the healthy group (1.03). These findings suggest that Blastocystis ST31 infection reshapes the gut microbiota and may impair the high-altitude adaptability of Tibetan antelopes by reducing plateau-adaptive microbes and functional capacity. This study provides the first evidence of Blastocystis-induced gut microbiota changes in Tibetan antelopes and broadens our understanding of parasite–microbiota interactions across hosts.
Keywords: Tibetan antelope, Gut Microbiota, Metagenome, Function analysis, BlastocystisInfection
Received: 05 Oct 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Lei, Qin, Ma, Xie, Liu, Li, Ni, Yu, Liang, Shi, Qin, Jiang, Yan, Chen, Li and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Bei-Ni Chen, xihani@126.com
Zhong-Yuan Li, lizhongyuan@glmc.edu.cn
He-Ting Sun, xiaofengsht@163.com
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