AUTHOR=Sun Baosheng , Hou Linyue , Yang Yu 

TITLE=The Development of the Gut Microbiota and Short-Chain Fatty Acids of Layer Chickens in Different Growth Periods

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Veterinary Science

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.666535

DOI=10.3389/fvets.2021.666535

ISSN=2297-1769

ABSTRACT=A long-term observation of changes of the gut microbiota and its metabolites would be beneficial to improving the production performance of chickens. Given this, one-day-old chickens were chosen in this study, with the aim of observing the development of the gut microbiota and gut microbial function using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metabolites-short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) from 8 to 50 weeks. The results showed that the relative abundances of Firmicutes and genus Alistipes were higher and fiber-degradation bacteria were less at 8 weeks compared with 20 and 50 weeks (P < 0.05). Consistently, gut microbial function was enriched in ATP-binding cassette transporters, the energy metabolism pathway and amino acid metabolism pathway at 8 weeks. In contrast, the abundance of Bacteroidetes and some SCFA-producing bacteria and fiber-degradation bacteria significantly increased at 20 weeks and 50 weeks compared with 8 weeks’ (P < 0.05), and the two-component system, glycoside hydrolase and carbohydrate metabolism pathway were significantly increased with age. The concentration of SCFAs in the cecum at 20 weeks was higher than 8 weeks’ (P < 0.01), because the level of fiber and the number of dominant fiber-degradation bacteria and SCFA-producing bacteria was more at 20 weeks. Notably, although OTUs and the gut microbial alpha diversity including chao1 and ACE were higher at 50 weeks than 20 weeks’ (P < 0.01), the concentration of SCFAs at 50 weeks was lower than 20 weeks’ (P < 0.01), suggesting an overly high level of microbial diversity may not be beneficial to the production of SCFAs.