Effects of Abortion on the Diversity of Vaginal and Intestinal Flora in Mares and the Isolation and Identification of Vaginal Bacteria
The aim of this experiment was to investigate the differences in the vaginal and intesti-nal flora structure of mares affected by abortion,and to isolate and identify vaginal pathogens and explore the biological characteristics of vaginal pathogens responsible for equine abortion.Vagi-nal secretion and faecal samples were collected from 10 mares in the aborted mare group and 6 mares in the healthy group.High-throughput sequencing of vaginal and faecal samples was per-formed in the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA to compare the differences in the vaginal and intes-tinal flora between the two groups,and to isolate and identify the vaginal bacteria in the aborted mares.Alpha diversity showed a trend of increased vaginal and intestinal flora richness and diver-sity in the aborted group compared with the healthy group.The similarity,dispersion,abun-dance and evolutionary relationship of the vaginal and intestinal flora of the two groups were found to be different by both Binary jaccard and unweighted unifrac distance matrix analyses.At the phylum level,compared with the healthy group,the vaginal flora of the abortion group showed a decrease in the abundance of Anaplasma and Clostridium phyla and an increase in the abundance of Helicobacter phyla and Thick-walled phyla,while the intestinal flora of the abortion group showed a decrease in the abundance of Thick-walled phyla and Anaplasma phyla,and an increase in the abundance of Aspergillus phyla and Actinobacterium phyla.LEfSe analysed Lacto-bacillaceae,Lactobacillus,Enterobacterales,Enterobacteriaceae,and Fusarium as the dominant vaginal flora species in the abortion group;and Actinomyces,Actinobacteria,Actinomycetia,Corynebacteriaceae,Corynebacterium,Peptoniphilus,and Peptinophilae were the dominant in-testinal species in the abortion group,and the altered abundance of these bacteria may be correla-ted with the development of the disease,as well as with the prognosis.Functional prediction and correlation analyses revealed a positive correlation between normal vaginal bacteria and health-re-lated microorganisms.Normal vaginal microbes were negatively correlated with abortion-associ-ated pathogens.Metabolic pathways in the gut of aborted mares were highly correlated with vagi-nal disease pathways,and immune disease pathways in the gut were positively correlated with changes in the vaginal immune system,suggesting that metabolic dysfunction in the gut may trigger the development of certain vaginal diseases.Four main pathogenic bacteria were isolated and identified from the vagina of aborted mares:Salmonella,Streptococcus equi subspecies zoo-noticus,Klebsiella and Escherichia coli.Vaginal and intestinal flora of mares are highly involved in the process of abortive disease and immunity,and the metabolic pathways of the flora may play a role in bridging the intestinal and vaginal flora and host immunity at the time of gestation,with the phyla Thick-walled and Actinobacteria in the vaginal flora and the phyla Arc anobacterium hippocoleae and Streptococcus infantarius were negatively correlated with the abortion-associated Aspergillus phylum.Salmonella may be the main causative agent of equine abortion and that As-pergillus phylum,Peptostreptococcus spp.and Campylobacter spp.may be the vaginal flora bio-markers for the occurrence of abortion.
abortionvaginal florahigh-throughput sequencingfunctional predictionbacterial isolation and identification
万方数据
维普
