A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Gut Microbiota Profiling as a Promising Tool to Detect Equine Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
Authors: Sävilammi, Tiina; Alakangas, Rinna-Riikka; Häyrynen, Tuomas; Uusi-Heikkilä, Silva
Publisher: MDPI
Publication year: 2024
Journal: Animals
Journal name in source: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Journal acronym: Animals (Basel)
Article number: 2396
Volume: 14
Issue: 16
ISSN: 2076-2615
eISSN: 2076-2615
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14162396
Web address : https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14162396
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/457822392
Gastrointestinal disorders are common and debilitating in horses, but their diagnosis is often difficult and invasive. Fecal samples offer a non-invasive alternative to assessing the gastrointestinal health of horses by providing information about the gut microbiota and inflammation. In this study, we used 16S sequencing to compare the fecal bacterial diversity and composition of 27 healthy horses and 49 horses diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We also measured fecal calprotectin concentration, a marker of intestinal inflammation, in healthy horses and horses with IBD. We found that microbiota composition differed between healthy horses and horses with IBD, although less than five percent of the variation in microbiota composition was explained by individual health status and age. Several differentially abundant bacterial taxa associated with IBD, age, or body condition were depleted from the most dominant Firmicutes phylum and enriched with the Bacteroidota phylum. An artificial neural network model predicted the probability of IBD among the test samples with 100% accuracy. Our study is the first to demonstrate the association between gut microbiota composition and chronic forms of IBD in horses and highlights the potential of using fecal samples as a non-invasive source of biomarkers for equine IBD.
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Funding information in the publication:
This research was funded by the Academy of Finland, grant number 325107 for S.U-H.
