A high-throughput DNA sequencing study of fecal bacteria of seven Mexican horse breeds.
Fernando Hernández-QuirozSelvasankar MurugesanCintia Flores-RivasAlberto Piña-EscobedoJosué Isaac Juárez-HernándezMatilde García-EspitiaAlejandra Chávez-CarbajalKhemlal NirmalkarJaime García-MenaPublished in: Archives of microbiology (2022)
Horses are non-ruminant, herbivorous mammals, been used through history for various purposes, with a gut microbiota from cecum to the colon, possessing remarkable fermentative capacity. We studied the fecal microbiota of Azteca, Criollo, Frisian, Iberian, Pinto, Quarter and Spanish horse breeds living in Mexico by next-generation DNA sequencing of 16S rRNA gene libraries. Dominant phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, Spirochaetes, Fibrobacteres, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia have different relative abundances among breeds, with contrasted alpha and beta diversities as well. Heatmap analysis revealed that Ruminococcaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Mogibacteriaceae families, and order Clostridiales are more abundant in Spanish, Azteca, Quarter and Criollo breeds. The LEfSe analysis displayed higher abundance of order Bacteroidales, family BS11, and genera Faecalibacterium, Comamonas, Collinsella, Acetobacter, and Treponema in Criollo, Azteca, Iberian, Spanish, Frisian, Pinto, and Quarter horse breeds. The conclusion is that dominant bacterial taxa, found in fecal samples of horse breeds living in Mexico, have different relative abundances.