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Microbial community and ovine host response varies with early and late stages of Haemonchus contortus infection

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Abstract

The interactions between gastric microbiota, ovine host, and Haemonchus contortus portray the ovine gastric environment as a complex ecosystem, where all factors play a pertinent role in fine-tuning each other and in haemeostasis. We delineated the impact of early and late Haemonchus infection on abomasal and ruminal microbial community, as well as the ovine host. Twelve, parasite-naive lambs were divided into four groups, 7 days post-infection (dpi) and time-matched uninfected-control groups; 50 dpi and time-matched uninfected control groups were used for the experiment. Six sheep were inoculated with 5000 H. contortus infective larvae and followed for 7 or 50 days with their corresponding uninfected-control ones. Ovine abomasal tissues were collected for histological analysis and gastric fluids were collected for PH value measurements, microbial community isolation and Illumina MiSeq platform and bioinformatic analysis. Our results showed that Haemonchus infection increased the abomasal gastric pH (P = 0.05) and resulted in necrotizing and inflammatory changes that were more severe during acute infection. Furthermore, infection increased the abomasal bacterial load and decreased the ruminal microbiome. A 7-day infection of sheep with H. contortus significantly altered approximately 98% and 94% of genera in the abomasal and ruminal bacterial profile, respectively (P = 0.04–0.05). However, the approximate altered genera 50 days after infection in the ovine abomasal and ruminal microbiome were about 62% and 69%, correspondingly (P = 0.04–0.05) with increase in some bacteria and decrease in others. Overall, these results indicate that Haemonchus infection plays a crucial role in shaping stomach microbial community composition, and diversity.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Key Basic Research Program (973 program) of China (Grant No. 2015CB150300), and the Start-up Research Grant Program provided by Foshan University, Foshan city, Guangdong province for distinguished researchers. Additionally, the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of life Science and Engineering, Foshan University, 18 Jiangwan street, Foshan, 528231, Guangdong, China

    Saeed El-Ashram

  2. National Animal Protozoa Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Saeed El-Ashram, Guangping Huang & Xun Suo

  3. Key Laboratory of Animal Epidemiology and Zoonosis of Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing, 100193, China

    Saeed El-Ashram & Xun Suo

  4. Faculty of Science, Kafrelsheikh University University, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt

    Saeed El-Ashram & Maged El-Kemary

  5. College of Science and Arts in Unaizah, Qassim University, Unaizah, Saudi Arabia

    Ibrahim Al Nasr

  6. College of Applied Health Sciences in Ar Rass, Qassim University, Ar Rass, 51921, Saudi Arabia

    Ibrahim Al Nasr

  7. Asmarya University for Islamic Sciences, Zliten, Libya

    Fathi Abouhajer

  8. College of Animal Sciences and Technology, China Agricultural University (CAU) China, Beijing, 100193, China

    Fathi Abouhajer

  9. Eskil Vocational School, Aksaray University, Aksaray, Turkey

    Güngör Dinçel

  10. Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Management Sciences and Information Technology, Kotli, AJK, Pakistan

    Rashid Mehmood

  11. State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, Key Laboratory of Development of Veterinary Products, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China

    Min Hu

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  1. Saeed El-Ashram
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El-Ashram, S., Al Nasr, I., Abouhajer, F. et al. Microbial community and ovine host response varies with early and late stages of Haemonchus contortus infection. Vet Res Commun 41, 263–277 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11259-017-9698-5

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