Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2021, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (5): 1359-1368.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2021.05.021

• PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Impact of H9N2 Subtype Avian Influenza Viral Infection on the Gut Flora in Mice

LI Jingyun1, LIAN Pengjing1, BAI Yu1, XI Liuqing1, ZHANG Zihui1, NIU Xiaofei2, YANG Junqi2, QIAO Jian1*   

  1. 1. College of Veterinary Medicine, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China;
    2. College of Life Sciences and Food Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China
  • Received:2020-09-18 Online:2021-05-23 Published:2021-05-22

Abstract: This experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of H9N2 subtype avian influenza virus (H9N2 AIV) infection on the gut microbiota in mice. Twenty-four SPF BALB/c male mice were selected and randomly divided into the control group and infection group. The control-group mice were intranasally inoculated with normal allantoic fluid, and the infection-group mice were intranasally challenged with allantoic fluid containing 1.2×105 plaque forming units of H9N2 AIV. The feces of control-group mice at day 0 and 33 and infection-group mice at day 4, 8, 21, and 33 post-infection (4, 8, 21, and 33 dpi) were collected. 16S rRNA sequence method was used to analyze the fecal bacteria after extracting DNA from the feces. The results showed that no significant differences were found in the alpha diversity or relative abundance of fecal bacteria in control-group mice between day 0 and day 33 (P>0.05); Comparatively, there were significant differences in the relative abundance of fecal bacteria between control-group mice and infection-group mice (P<0.05), though no significant differences were found in the alpha diversity of fecal bacteria (P>0.05). Of note, the relative abundance of the phylum Firmicutes decreased, while that of the phylum Proteobacteria increased in the fecal bacteria of the infection-group mice at 4 dpi compared to the control-group mice. Thereafter, the relative abundance of the phylum Firmicutes gradually increased, while that of the phylum Proteobacteria gradually decreased in the fecal bacteria during H9N2 AIV infection. In line with this finding, we observed a separation of over-all fecal bacterial community beta diversity from control-group mice and infection-group mice at 4, 8, 21, and 33 dpi by principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) at the OTU level. These results indicated that the intestinal bacterial community in mice is stable during homeostasis, while the composition of intestinal bacteria significantly changes after pulmonary H9N2 AIV infection and does not recover at 33 dpi.

Key words: H9N2 subtype avian influenza virus, gut flora, mice

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