책임운영기관 농촌진흥청 국립축산과학원 (로고)

Abstract: Gut microbiomes are well recognized to serve a variety of roles in health and disease, even though their functions are not yet completely understood. Previous studies have demon-strated that the microbiomes of juvenile and adult dogs have significantly different composi-tions and characteristics. However, there is still a scarcity of basic microbiome research in dogs. In this study, we aimed to advance our understanding by confirming the difference in fecal mi-crobiome between young and adult dogs by analyzing the feces of 4-month and 16-month-old Jindo dogs, a domestic Korean breed. Microbiome data were generated and examined for the two age groups using 16S rRNA analysis. Comparison results revealed that the 16-month-old group presented a relatively high distribution of Bacteroides, whereas the 4-month-old group presented a comparatively high distribution of the Lactobacillus genus. Microbial function pre-diction analyses confirmed the relative abundance of lipid metabolism in 4-month-old dogs. In 16-month-old dogs, glucose metabolism was determined using microbial function prediction analyses. This implies that the functional microbiome changes similarly to the latter in adults compared with childhood. Overall, we discovered compositional and functional variations be-tween genes of the gut microbial population in juveniles and adults. These microbial communi-ty profiles can be used as references for future research on the microbiome associated with health and development in the canine population.