Comparative analysis of the gut microbiota of adult rats from nine locations in Hainan, China

Background: Rats are potential reservoirs for zoonotic infectious diseases. It is essential for preventing and treating such diseases to understand the composition of gut microbial communities in rats. As a tropical island locating in the south of China, Hainan province has abundant rat species. Here, we examined the gut microbial composition in adult rats from Hainan province of China.Methods: A total of 162 fresh faecal samples were collected from adult wild rats, including three species (Rattus norvegicus, Leopoldamys edwardsi, and Rattus losea), from nine regions of Hainan province in 2018. We analyzed the composition of gut microbiota using the 16S rRNA gene sequencing.Results: We identified 4,903 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) (30 phyla, 175 families, and 498 genera), which is different among distinct geographical distributions. Totally, Firmicutes were the most abundant phyla, followed by Bacteroidetes (15.55%), Proteobacteria (6.13%) and Actinobacteria (4.02%). The genus Lactobacillus (20.08%), unidentified_Clostridiales (5.16%), Romboutsia (4.33%), unidentified_Ruminococcaceae (3.83%), Bacteroides (3.66%), Helicobacter (2.40%) and Streptococcus (2.37%) were dominant in the samples. Among locations for rat species, the gut microbial communities were different in composition and abundance.Conclusion: This work provides information to identify microbial communities using for disease control in Hainan province.