Altered microbiome and metabolome profiling in fearful companion dogs: An exploratory study

Study information

Needs review

study design

case-control

Citation

PMID PubMed identifier for scientific articles.

39813205

DOI Digital object identifier for electronic documents.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0315374

URI

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315374

Authors

Sacchettino L, Costanzo M, Veneruso I, D'Argenio V, Mayer M, Napolitano F, d'Angelo D

Journal

PloS one

Year

2025

Behavioral dysfunctions in dogs represent one of the main social concerns, since they can endanger animals and human-dog relationship. Together with the trigger stimulus (human, animal, place, scent, auditory stimuli, objects), dogs can experience stressful conditions, either in multiple settings or unique situations, more often turning into generalized fear. Such a dysfunctional behavior can be associated with genetic susceptibility, environmental factors, traumatic experiences, and medical conditions. The available therapy, based on behavior approaches, environmental management, and neurochemical manipulation, through nutrition, supplements, medicines, and pheromones, represent the mainstays of the treatments currently accessible. Growing evidence in humans and animals highlight the importance of the gut-brain axis in the modulation of the brain physiology and behavior as well. Here, taking advantage of the next generation sequencing approach, we sought to investigate the potential connection between gut microbiota and microbiome in dogs suffering from generalized fear (n = 8), when compared to healthy subjects (n = 8), who all lived in different families. Faecal microbiota evaluation showed a differential abundance of taxa related to Proteobacteria and Firmicutes Phyla, between case and control dogs. Moreover, serum metabolomics documented significant alterations of molecules associated to GABA and glutamate neurotransmission in the patients, as well as bile acids metabolism. Overall, our preliminary and integrated investigations highlighted an intriguing role for the microbiome-metabolome network, allowing to further unveil the potential pathophysiology of relational issues in companion animals and paving the way for more effective therapeutical approaches.

Experiment 1

Edit History Delete

Mark reviewed

Your review change was submittedDuplicate this Experiment Add a new Signature

Needs review

Curated date: 2025/02/15

Curator: Akritishakya

Revision editor(s): Akritishakya, WikiWorks

Subjects

Location of subjects: Italy

Host species Species from which microbiome was sampled. Contact us to have more species added.: Canis lupus familiaris

Body site Anatomical site where microbial samples were extracted from according to the Uber Anatomy Ontology: Feces Cow dung,Cow pat,Droppings,Dung,Excrement,Excreta,Faeces,Fecal material,Fecal matter,Fewmet,Frass,Guano,Matières fécales@fr,Merde@fr,Ordure,Partie de la merde@fr,Piece of shit,Porción de mierda@es,Portion of dung,Portion of excrement,Portion of faeces,Portion of fecal material,Portion of fecal matter,Portion of feces,Portion of guano,Portion of scat,Portionem cacas,Scat,Spoor,Spraint,Stool,Teil der fäkalien@de,Feces,feces

Condition The experimental condition / phenotype studied according to the Experimental Factor Ontology: Mental or behavioural disorder Behavior Disorder,Brief Reactive Psychoses,Brief Reactive Psychosis,disease of mental health,disorder of mental process,Disorder, Psychotic,Disorders, Psychotic,Mental Disorder,mental disorder,mental disorders,mental or behavioral disorder,mental or behavioural disorder,mental process disease,Psychiatric Disorder,Psychoses,Psychoses, Brief Reactive,Psychosis, Brief Reactive,PSYCHOTIC DIS,Psychotic Disorder,Psychotic Disorders,Reactive Psychoses, Brief,Reactive Psychosis, Brief,Mental or behavioural disorder

Group 0 name Corresponds to the control (unexposed) group for case-control studies: Control Group

Group 1 name Corresponds to the case (exposed) group for case-control studies: Fearful Dogs

Group 1 definition Diagnostic criteria applied to define the specific condition / phenotype represented in the case (exposed) group: Dogs exhibiting generalized fear, assessed through behavioral tests and owner-reported questionnaries.

Group 0 sample size Number of subjects in the control (unexposed) group: 8

Group 1 sample size Number of subjects in the case (exposed) group: 8

Antibiotics exclusion Number of days without antibiotics usage (if applicable) and other antibiotics-related criteria used to exclude participants (if any): Antibiotics exclusion: Yes Number of days without antibiotics: 1 month Other antibiotics-related criteria: Dogs that have received antibiotics within four weeks before stool nad blood sampling were excluded.

Lab analysis

Sequencing type: 16S

16S variable region One or more hypervariable region(s) of the bacterial 16S gene: V4-V6

Sequencing platform Manufacturer and experimental platform used for quantifying microbial abundance: Illumina

Statistical Analysis

Data transformation Data transformation applied to microbial abundance measurements prior to differential abundance testing (if any).: relative abundances

Statistical test: edgeR

Significance threshold p-value or FDR threshold used for differential abundance testing (if any): 0.03

MHT correction Have statistical tests be corrected for multiple hypothesis testing (MHT)?: Yes

Matched on Factors on which subjects have been matched on in a case-control study: age, diet

Confounders controlled for Confounding factors that have been accounted for by stratification or model adjustment: Confounders controlled for: "none" is not in the list (abnormal glucose tolerance, acetaldehyde, acute graft vs. host disease, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, adenoma, age, AIDS, alcohol consumption measurement, alcohol drinking, ...) of allowed values.none

Alpha Diversity

Pielou Quantifies how equal the community is numerically: unchanged

Shannon Estimator of species richness and species evenness: more weight on species richness: unchanged

Chao1 Abundance-based estimator of species richness: unchanged

Simpson Estimator of species richness and species evenness: more weight on species evenness: unchanged

Inverse Simpson Modification of Simpsons index D as 1/D to obtain high values in datasets of high diversity and vice versa: unchanged

Richness Number of species: unchanged

Faith Phylogenetic diversity, takes into account phylogenetic distance of all taxa identified in a sample: unchanged

Signature 1

Edit History Delete

incomplete

Curated date: 2025/02/22

Curator: Akritishakya

Revision editor(s): Akritishakya

Source: Altered microbiome and metabolome profiling in fearful dogs.

Description: Taxa Significantly increased in fearful dogs compared to controls .

Abundance in Group 1: increased abundance in Fearful Dogs

NCBI	Quality Control	Links

Revision editor(s): Akritishakya