Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Infection Induced the Unbalance of Gut Microbiota in Piglets.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) is a devastating disease in livestock industry. Most of the previous studies related to the PED were focused on the pathology and etiology of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). A little was known regarding the status of gut microbiota after piglets infected by PEDV. In this study, aided by metagenome sequencing technology, gut microbiota profiles in feces of viral diarrhea (VD) and viral control (VC) piglets were investigated. The results showed that the abundance of four dominant phyla (Fusobacteria, Actinobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, and Proteobacteria) in feces was affected greatly by porcine epidemic diarrhea. Especially, the abundance of Fusobacteria was higher in VD piglets (36%) than in VC piglets (5%). On the contrary, the Verrucomicrobia was detected in lower distribution proportion in VD piglets (around 0%) than in VC piglets (20%). Furthermore, 25 genera were significantly different between VC and VD piglets at the genus level. Among the 25 genera, Leptotrichia belonging to Fusobacteria was remarkably lower in VC piglets than in VD piglets. Akkermansia belonging to Verrucomicrobia was higher in VC piglets than in VD piglets. Our findings implicated that the gut microbiota associated with PED significantly provided an insight into the pathology and physiology of PED.