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Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota

Tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum) is a widely used forage grass which shares a symbiosis with the endophytic fungus Epichloë coenophiala. The endophyte produces an alkaloid toxin that provides herbivory, heat and drought resistance to the grass, but can cause fescue toxicosis in grazing livestock. F...

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Autores principales: Koester, Lucas R., Poole, Daniel H., Serão, Nick V. L., Schmitz-Esser, Stephan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7377488/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32701945
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229192
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author Koester, Lucas R.
Poole, Daniel H.
Serão, Nick V. L.
Schmitz-Esser, Stephan
author_facet Koester, Lucas R.
Poole, Daniel H.
Serão, Nick V. L.
Schmitz-Esser, Stephan
author_sort Koester, Lucas R.
collection PubMed
description Tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum) is a widely used forage grass which shares a symbiosis with the endophytic fungus Epichloë coenophiala. The endophyte produces an alkaloid toxin that provides herbivory, heat and drought resistance to the grass, but can cause fescue toxicosis in grazing livestock. Fescue toxicosis can lead to reduced weight gain and milk yields resulting in significant losses to the livestock industry. The objective of this study was to identify bacterial and fungal communities associated with fescue toxicosis tolerance. In this trial, 149 Angus cows across two farms were continuously exposed to toxic, endophyte-infected, fescue for a total of 13 weeks. Of those 149 cows, 40 were classified into either high (HT) or low (LT) tolerance groups according to their growth performance (weight gain). 20 HT and 20 LT cattle balanced by farm were selected for amplicon sequencing to compare the fecal microbiota of the two tolerance groups. This study reveals significantly (q<0.05) different bacterial and fungal microbiota between HT and LT cattle, and indicates that fungal phylotypes may be important for an animal’s response to fescue toxicosis: We found that fungal phylotypes affiliating to the Neocallimastigaceae, which are known to be important fiber-degrading fungi, were consistently more abundant in the HT cattle. Whereas fungal phylotypes related to the genus Thelebolus were more abundant in the LT cattle. This study also found more pronounced shifts in the microbiota in animals receiving higher amounts of the toxin. We identified fungal phylotypes which were consistently more abundant either in HT or LT cattle and may thus be associated with the respective animal’s response to fescue toxicosis. Our results thus suggest that some fungal phylotypes might be involved in mitigating fescue toxicosis.
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spelling pubmed-73774882020-07-27 Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota Koester, Lucas R. Poole, Daniel H. Serão, Nick V. L. Schmitz-Esser, Stephan PLoS One Research Article Tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum) is a widely used forage grass which shares a symbiosis with the endophytic fungus Epichloë coenophiala. The endophyte produces an alkaloid toxin that provides herbivory, heat and drought resistance to the grass, but can cause fescue toxicosis in grazing livestock. Fescue toxicosis can lead to reduced weight gain and milk yields resulting in significant losses to the livestock industry. The objective of this study was to identify bacterial and fungal communities associated with fescue toxicosis tolerance. In this trial, 149 Angus cows across two farms were continuously exposed to toxic, endophyte-infected, fescue for a total of 13 weeks. Of those 149 cows, 40 were classified into either high (HT) or low (LT) tolerance groups according to their growth performance (weight gain). 20 HT and 20 LT cattle balanced by farm were selected for amplicon sequencing to compare the fecal microbiota of the two tolerance groups. This study reveals significantly (q<0.05) different bacterial and fungal microbiota between HT and LT cattle, and indicates that fungal phylotypes may be important for an animal’s response to fescue toxicosis: We found that fungal phylotypes affiliating to the Neocallimastigaceae, which are known to be important fiber-degrading fungi, were consistently more abundant in the HT cattle. Whereas fungal phylotypes related to the genus Thelebolus were more abundant in the LT cattle. This study also found more pronounced shifts in the microbiota in animals receiving higher amounts of the toxin. We identified fungal phylotypes which were consistently more abundant either in HT or LT cattle and may thus be associated with the respective animal’s response to fescue toxicosis. Our results thus suggest that some fungal phylotypes might be involved in mitigating fescue toxicosis. Public Library of Science 2020-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC7377488/ /pubmed/32701945 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229192 Text en © 2020 Koester et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Koester, Lucas R.
Poole, Daniel H.
Serão, Nick V. L.
Schmitz-Esser, Stephan
Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
title Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
title_full Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
title_fullStr Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
title_full_unstemmed Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
title_short Beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
title_sort beef cattle that respond differently to fescue toxicosis have distinct gastrointestinal tract microbiota
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7377488/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32701945
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229192
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