Longevity and resilience are two fundamental traits for more sustainable livestock production. These traits are closely related, as resilient animals tend to have longer lifespans. An interesting criterion for increasing longevity in rabbit could be based on the information provided by its gut microbiome. The gut microbiome is essential for regulating health and plays crucial roles in the development of the immune system. The aim of this research was to investigate if animals with different longevities have different microbial profiles. We sequenced the 16S rRNA gene from soft faeces from 95 does. First, we compared two maternal rabbit lines with different longevities; a standard longevity maternal line (A) and a maternal line (LP) that was founded based on longevity criteria: females with a minimum of 25 parities with an average prolificacy per parity of 9 or more. Second, we compared the gut microbiota of two groups of animals from line LP with different longevities: females that died/were culled with two parities or less (LLP) and females with more than 15 parities (HLP). Differences in alpha and beta diversity were observed between lines A and LP, and a partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) showed a high prediction accuracy (> 91%) of classification of animals to line A versus LP (146 amplicon sequence variants (ASV)). The PLS-DA also showed a high prediction accuracy (> 94%) to classify animals to the LLP and HLP groups (53 ASV). Interestingly, some of the most important taxa identified in the PLS-DA were common to both comparisons (Akkermansia, Christensenellaceae R-7, Uncultured Eubacteriaceae, among others) and have been reported to be related to resilience and longevity. Our results indicate that the first parity gut microbiome profile differs between the two rabbit maternal lines (A and LP) and, to a lesser extent, between animals of line LP with different longevities (LLP and HLP). Several genera were able to discriminate animals from the two lines and animals with different longevities, which shows that the gut microbiome could be used as a predictive factor for longevity, or as a selection criterion for these traits.

中文翻译：

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微生物组组成作为兔子长寿的潜在预测因子


长寿和复原力是更可持续畜牧生产的两个基本特征。这些特征密切相关，因为适应力强的动物往往寿命更长。延长兔子寿命的一个有趣标准可能基于其肠道微生物组提供的信息。肠道微生物组对于调节健康至关重要，并且在免疫系统的发育中发挥着至关重要的作用。这项研究的目的是调查不同寿命的动物是否具有不同的微生物特征。我们对 95 只母兔软粪便中的 16S rRNA 基因进行了测序。首先，我们比较了两个具有不同寿命的母兔系；标准长寿母系（A）和根据长寿标准建立的母系（LP）：至少生育 25 胎的女性，每胎平均繁殖力为 9 或更多。其次，我们比较了来自 LP 品系的两组具有不同寿命的动物的肠道微生物群：死亡/被淘汰的雌性动物（胎次或少于 2 次）（LLP）和胎次超过 15 次的雌性（HLP）。在 A 系和 LP 系之间观察到 α 和 β 多样性的差异，并且偏最小二乘判别分析 (PLS-DA) 显示 A 系动物与 LP 系动物分类的预测准确度较高 (> 91%)（146 个扩增子序列变体） （ASV））。 PLS-DA 还表现出较高的预测准确度 (> 94%)，可将动物分类为 LLP 和 HLP 组 (53 ASV)。有趣的是，PLS-DA 中确定的一些最重要的分类群在两次比较中都是相同的（Akkermansia、Christensenellaceae R-7、未培养的真细菌科等），并且据报道与恢复力和寿命有关。 我们的结果表明，两个兔母系（A 和 LP）之间的首次胎次肠道微生物组谱存在差异，并且具有不同寿命的 LP 系动物（LLP 和 HLP）之间也存在较小程度的差异。几个属能够区分这两个品系的动物以及具有不同寿命的动物，这表明肠道微生物组可以用作寿命的预测因素，或作为这些性状的选择标准。