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Structural modulation of gut microbiota in Bama minipigs in response to treatment with a “growth-promoting agent”, salbutamol

  • Applied microbial and cell physiology
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Abstract

Even though salbutamol (SAL) had remarkable effects on the enhancement of growth rate and carcass composition in different livestock species such as cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry, it was banned as a growth promoter because of its adverse effects on health. However, the specific mechanism by which salbutamol enhances growth efficiency remains unknown. In this study, Bama pigs were randomly allocated to receive salbutamol (5 mg/kg) for 30 or 60 days and were compared with untreated pigs. Pigs treated with salbutamol demonstrated enhanced growth rates and carcass composition; however, they showed deterioration in blood biochemical indices and organ development. We hypothesized that salbutamol exerts its effects by modulating the composition of the gut microbiota population. The faecal microbiome of pigs was characterized via pyrosequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. The gut microbiota population analysis showed that salbutamol caused shifts in the microbial composition of less abundant species. Redundancy analysis indicated an increase in abundance of the phylum Bacteroidetes, class Betaproteobacteria, family Christensenellaceae and genus Lactobacillus, and a decreased ratio of the phylum Firmicutes, class Clostridia and genera Ruminococcus, Blautia and Subdoligranulum. In conclusion, our study provided circumstantial evidence that the various effects of salbutamol are caused by gut microbiota modulation, and several potential candidates were identified for SAL detection via the gut microbiota. Our findings provided new insights into the roles of the gut microbiota during salbutamol treatment, and these findings will aid in the screening of alternative strategies for animal health improvement and production enhancement.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Key Specialty of Ningbo City and by the K.C. Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University. We thank the Nature Research Editing Service for English language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Marine Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo City, China

    Chenyang Lu, Jun Zhou, Dijun Zhang, Zuzhong Wang, Ye Li, Lingzhi Cheong, Chundan Zhang & Xiurong Su

  2. Department of Food Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Yanyan Li

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  1. Chenyang Lu
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Correspondence to Xiurong Su.

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Procedures of the experimental and animal care were performed in accordance with the guideline prepared by the Ningbo University Laboratory Animal Center (affiliated with the Zhejiang Laboratory Animal Common Service Platform), and all of the protocols were approved by the Ningbo University Laboratory Animal Center under permit number no. SYXK (ZHE 2008-0110).

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Lu, C., Zhou, J., Li, Y. et al. Structural modulation of gut microbiota in Bama minipigs in response to treatment with a “growth-promoting agent”, salbutamol. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 101, 5809–5818 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8329-y

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