Association of gut microbiota with metabolism in juvenile Atlantic salmon

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RESEARCH

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Association of gut microbiota with metabolism in juvenile Atlantic salmon H. Dvergedal1, S. R. Sandve1* , I. L. Angell2, G. Klemetsdal1 and K. Rudi2

Abstract The gut microbiome plays a key role in animal health and metabolism through the intricate functional interconnection between the feed, gut microbes, and the host. Unfortunately, in aquaculture, the links between gut microbes and fish genetics and production phenotypes are not well understood. In this study, we investigate the associations between gut microbial communities, fish feed conversion, and fish genetics in the domestic Atlantic salmon. Microbial community composition was determined for 230 juvenile fish from 23 full-sib families and was then regressed on growth, carbon and nitrogen metabolism, and feed efficiency. We only found weak associations between host genetics and microbial composition. However, we did identify significant (p < 0.05) associations between the abundance of three microbial operational taxonomical units (OTUs) and fish metabolism phenotypes. Two OTUs were associated with both carbon metabolism in adipose tissue and feed efficiency, while a third OTU was associated with weight gain. In conclusion, this study demonstrates an intriguing association between host lipid metabolism and the gut microbiota composition in Atlantic salmon. Keywords: Microbiome, Atlantic salmon, Genetics, Metabolism, Feed efficiency, Carbon turnover

Background Efficient and environmentally sustainable animal production systems are urgently required to ensure longterm food security, especially as global aquaculture consumption is projected to double by 2050 (www.fao.org). One important aspect of improving sustainability is to improve feed conversion and growth. In humans and other vertebrate systems, the gut microbiome plays a central role in the path from “feed-to-animal” [1–4], and recent studies have also shown that host-genetic factors can modulate microbiome composition. Such functional interconnection between feed, microbes, and host (i.e., the feed-microbiome-host axis) opens up intriguing avenues for optimizing aquaculture production systems, for

* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P. O. Box 5003, NO-1433 Ås, Norway Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

example by breeding for “optimized” microbiome composition [5]. Yet, even though the dietary composition is known to impact the gut microbiome in aquaculture species [1], almost nothing is known about the link between the gut microbiota and important production phenotypes, or to what extent microbiota composition itself could be a new breeding target for aquaculture breeding programs [5]. To address this pressing knowledge gap, we use a family-based experimental design to test if variation in the gut microbiome composition in juvenile Atlantic salmon is associated with key phenotypes related to host metabolism as well as variation