A pilot RNA-seq study in 40 Pietrain ejaculates to characterize the porcine sperm microbiome
Gòdia, Marta (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Ramayo-Caldas, Yuliaxis (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries)
Zingaretti, Laura M. (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Darwich Soliva, Laila (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)
López, Samantha (Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada)
Rodríguez-Gil, Joan E. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals)
Yeste Oliveras, Marc (Universitat de Girona. Institut de Tecnologia Agroalimentària)
Sánchez Bonastre, Armando (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Clop, Alex (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)

Date:	2020
Abstract:	The microbiome plays a key role in homeostasis and health and it has been also linked to fertility and semen quality in several animal species including swine. Despite the more than likely importance of sperm bacteria on the boar's reproductive ability and the dissemination of pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes, the high throughput characterization of the swine sperm microbiome remains scarce. We carried RNA-seq on 40 ejaculates each from a different Pietrain boar and found that a proportion of the sequencing reads did not map to the Sus scrofa genome. The current study aimed at using these reads not belonging to pig to carry a pilot study to profile the boar sperm bacterial population and its relation with 7 semen quality traits. We found that the boar sperm contains a broad population of bacteria. The most abundant phyla were Proteobacteria (39. 1%), Firmicutes (27. 5%), Actinobacteria (14. 9%) and Bacteroidetes (5. 7%). The predominant species contaminated sperm after ejaculation from soil, faeces and water sources (Bacillus megaterium, Brachybacterium faecium, Bacillus coagulans). Some potential pathogens were also found but at relatively low levels (Escherichia coli, Clostridioides difficile, Clostridium perfringens, Clostridium botulinum and Mycobacterium tuberculosis). We also identified 3 potential antibiotic resistant genes from E. coli against chloramphenicol, Neisseria meningitidis against spectinomycin and Staphylococcus aureus against linezolid. None of these genes were highly abundant. Finally, we classified the ejaculates into categories according to their bacterial features and semen quality parameters and identified two categories that significantly differed for 5 semen quality traits and 13 bacterial features including the genera Acinetobacter, Stenotrophomonas and Rhodobacter. Our results show that boar semen contains a bacterial community, including potential pathogens and putative antibiotic resistance genes, and that these bacteria may affect its reproductive performance.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad AGL2013-44978-R Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad AGL2017-86946-R Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-1528 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-01060 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SEV-2015-0533 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BES-2014-070560 European Commission 6655919
Note:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Pig ; Spermatozoa ; Microbiome ; RNA-seq ; Sperm quality
Published in:	Theriogenology, Vol. 157 (November 2020) , p. 525-533, ISSN 0093-691X

DOI: 10.1016/j.theriogenology.2020.08.001
PMID: 32971422

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CRAG (Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles