Dynamic changes in the gastrointestinal microbial communities of Gangba sheep and analysis of their functions in plant biomass degradation at high altitude

作者：Xiaozhen Liu, He Ding, Xiaoxue Zhang, Xiaoxue Zhang, Jinmei Zhao, Jinmei Zhao, Qian Zhang, Huiyun Liu, Mengjiao Sun, Xiaoqing Zhang, Xiaoqing Zhang · 发表于：Microbiome · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s40168-024-02022-5 · 被引用次数：12 · 研究领域：Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology、Gut microbiota and health、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology

BACKGROUND: While Gangba sheep being well known for their unique flavour and nutritional value, harsh environmental factors negatively affect their growth and development, leading to poor productivity. The gastrointestinal tract microbiota plays an important role in host nutrient absorption and metabolism. The identification of dynamic changes in the gastrointestinal microbial communities and their functions is an important step towards improving animal production performance and health. RESULTS: A comprehensive multi-omics survey of the microbial communities of the Gangba sheep gastrointestinal tract was performed under three distinct feeding strategies: natural grazing, semi-grazing with supplementation, and barn feeding. The dynamic changes, cross-kingdom partnerships and functional potential profiles were analysed and the results revealed that the feeding strategies had a greater impact on the microbial communities than the site of the gastrointestinal tract. The different microbial associations among the groups were revealed by co-occurrence networks based on the amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). Moreover, a Gangba sheep gastrointestinal microbial genomic catalogue was constructed for the first time, including 1146 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) with completeness > 50% and contamination < 10%, among which, 504 bacterial and 15 archaeal MAGs were of high quality with completeness > 80% and contamination < 10%. About 40% of the high-quality MAGs displaying enzyme act...