Integrated metabolomics and intestinal flora approach to reveal anti-post-weaning diarrhea mechanisms of Modified Yupingfeng Granule in Rex rabbits

Post-weaning Diarrhea (PWD) is a kind of physiological and psychological stress diarrhea in Rex rabbits after weaning, which can lead to death. At present, antibiotics is the method of responding to PWD in animal production, which has raised economic and public health concerns. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used in animal due to its advantages of natural origin, diverse functions, safety, reliability, economy and environmental protection compared with antibiotics. Modified Yupingfeng Granule (MYPFG) is an improved Yupingfeng prescription based on the famous traditional Chinese prescription Yupingfeng (YPF), which is combined with other TCM and has obvious synergistic and additive activity in order to obtain an excellent natural medicine for PWD. After optimizing the prescription of MYPFG, the study also combined 16S rRNA analysis of gut microbiota and ileal contents metabolomics to explore the mechanism of MYPFG effect on PWD in Rex rabbits. The intestinal flora test found that MYPFG could change the abundances of Patescibacteria, Sphingobium, Ruminococcus and Oxalobacter. Metabolomics analysis found that effect may be related to its regulation of Glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, Arginine and proline metabolism, Nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism. MYPFG could regulate intestinal flora and change the metabolic pathway of some amino acids to alleviate the PWD in rex rabbits.