Characterization of gut microbiota compositions along the intestinal tract in CD163/pAPN double knockout piglet and their potential roles on iron absorption

The gut microbiota is known to play a role in regulating host metabolism, yet the mechanisms underlying this regulation are not well elucidated. Our study aimed to characterize differences in gut microbiota composition and function between wild-type (WT) and CD163/pAPN double knockout (DKO) weaned piglets. We sampled 58 intestinal content specimens along the entire digestive tract (including duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caecum and colon) and feces for analysis of microbial community using bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The colonic microbiota function and their metabolites were determined by metagenomic sequencing and untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), respectively.