DOI: 10.5525/gla.researchdata.1039
title: The effect of synbiotic supplement on equine faecal microbiota following abrupt dietary changes

description: Probiotics and prebiotics may have the potential to maintain a stable equine gut microbiota during abrupt dietary changes thus possibly limiting gastro-intestinal tract upsets and reducing the incidence of colic and laminitis. This study investigated the effect of synbiotic (probiotic and prebiotic) supplementation on faecal microbiome structure, faecal pH and hay intake during an abrupt change from hay to grass and vice versa. On day 0 ponies were abruptly changed from a grass to hay diet. The experiment consisted of 3, 14-day periods where eight ponies were fed hay or grass ad lib, 100 g concentrates/day, and 25 ml molasses/day. The control (n=4) and treatment (n=4) groups received 0 g and 17 g of synbiotic supplement/day, respectively. The supplement provided 7 g of live yeast S. cerevisiae equivalent to 7x1010 CFU, 3 g of fructooligosaccharides, and 2 g of yeast cell walls (mannooligosaccharides and β-glucans). At the end of period one ponies were abruptly changed from hay to grass and then back to hay at the end of period two. Faecal samples were collected on days 1-3, 7 and 14 post abrupt dietary changes. Genomic DNA was extracted, 16S libraries were generated prior Illumina next generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene. Biostatistical analysis was conducted using 16S metagenomics pipeline in QIIME v1.9.1. Bacterial phyla with a relative abundance (RA) of more than 0.03 % (n=14) and genera with RA more than 0.3 % (n=26) were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA in Genstat 19th (VSN International) after square root (sqrt) transformation and visual assessment of residual plots. The statistical model tested the effect of day, treatment and pony on the RA of microbial taxa, faecal pH and hay intake for each period and for all 3 periods combined. Synbiotic supplementation increased the RA of the first most abundant phylum Bacteroidetes (P=0.009) and decreased the RA of Synergistetes phylum (P=0.035). Moreover, synbiotic decreased the RA of Actinobacteria (P=0.04) and unassigned genus from Lachnospiraceae family (P=0.048) in period 1. In period two, synbiotic increased the RA of the first most abundant genus belonging to the order Bacteroidales. There were no effects of synbiotic supplement on faecal pH or hay intake (P &gt;0.05). Bacteroidetes, the phylum associated with positive energy balance. Synbiotic maintained higher levels of Bacteroidetes post dietary change, thus appears to support a more stable microbial structure. This dataset contains the following: 1) Biom table summary “biom_table_summary.txt” 2) Master run log in QIIME version: 1.9.1 “log_20171006123815.txt” 3) Filtered BIOM table (minimum sequence count: 5000) “table_even5000.biom.gz” 4) Rarefied BIOM table (sampling depth: 5000) “table_mc5000.biom.gz” 5) OTUs relative abundance at phylum taxonomic level for each sample in .biom and .xlsx formats “table_mc5000_sorted_L2.biom”, "table_mc5000_sorted_L2.xlsx" 6) OTUs relative abundance at class taxonomic level for each sample in .biom and .xlsx formats “table_mc5000_sorted_L3.biom”, "table_mc5000_sorted_L3.xlsx" 7) OTUs relative abundance at class taxonomic level for each sample in .biom and .xlsx formats “table_mc5000_sorted_L4.biom”, "table_mc5000_sorted_L4.xlsx" 8) OTUs relative abundance at family taxonomic level for each sample in .biom and .xlsx formats “table_mc5000_sorted_L5.biom”, "table_mc5000_sorted_L5.xlsx" 9) OTUs relative abundance at genus taxonomic level for each sample in .biom and .xlsx formats “table_mc5000_sorted_L6.biom”, "table_mc5000_sorted_L6.xlsx" 10) README file