Cecal microbiota of pregnant mice under heat stress

Emerging evidence indicates that gut microbiota disorder along with its triggered increased gut permeability, inflammation and impaired nutrients metabolism plays a pivotal role in the reproduction impairment. Whether heat stress can cause the dysbiosis of intestinal microflora resulting in the increase of lipopolysaccharide producing bacteria and how melatonin lessens the intestinal microbiota disturbances remains elusive. Therefore, we performed 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing on cecal content samples of pregnant mice to investigate the bacterial taxonomic composition in the control, heat stress and heat stress and melatonin supplementation groups.