Skip to main content
ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Davis, California » Western Human Nutrition Research Center » Diet, Microbiome and Immunity Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #348850
Title: Fecal metatranscriptomics of macaques with idiopathic chronic diarrhea reveals altered mucin degradation and fucose utilization

Author
item WESTREICH, SAMUEL - University Of California, Davis
item ARDESHIR, AMIR - University Of California, Davis
item Alkan, Zeynep
item Kable, Mary
item KORF, IAN - University Of California, Davis
item Lemay, Danielle

Submitted to: Microbiome
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/18/2019
Publication Date: 3/18/2019
Citation: Westreich, S.T., Ardeshir, A., Alkan, Z., Kable, M.E., Korf, I., Lemay, D.G. 2019. Fecal metatranscriptomics of macaques with idiopathic chronic diarrhea reveals altered mucin degradation and fucose utilization. BMC Microbiome. 7:41. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-019-0664-z.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-019-0664-z

Interpretive Summary: Like humans, rhesus macaques suffer from gastrointestinal diseases of unknown cause. Chronic diarrhea in rhesus macaques which is unresponsive to medical interventions and for which specific pathogen testing is negative is referred to as Idiopathic Chronic Diarrhea (ICD). Testing for specific pathogens suffers from the limitations of culture-based systems. We therefore used a new sequencing method to observe all genes expressed by all organisms in the stool of macaques with and without the disease. This technique reveals which organisms are active in the colon of diseased and healthy animals and which genes are being expressed by those organisms. Analysis of the data suggests that ICD is associated with increased activity of pathogens, altered mucin production by the host, and increased mucin degradation by the microbiome.

Technical Abstract: Idiopathic Chronic Diarrhea (ICD) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality among juvenile rhesus macaques. Characterized by chronic inflammation of the colon and repeated bouts of diarrhea, ICD is largely unresponsive to medical interventions including corticosteroid, antiparasitic and antibiotic treatments. Although ICD is accompanied by large disruptions in the composition of the commensal gut microbiome, no single pathogen has been concretely identified as responsible for the onset and continuation of the disease.