Journal
FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.700603
Keywords
gut microbiota; T cell; thymus; antibiotic; early life
Categories
Funding
- Key Realm R&D Program of Guangdong Province [2020B0202090004]
- Special fund for Scientific Innovation Strategy-Construction of High Level Academy of Agriculture Science [R2020PY-JX006, 202107TD]
- Modern Agricultural Industrial Technology System of Guangdong Province [2020KJ128]
- China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA [CARS-41]
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Studies have shown the association between gut microbiota and the development of thymic T cells in young chickens. Early antibiotic treatment reduces gut microbiota diversity, leading to a decrease in thymic T cells. Interventions that modify gut microbiota in early life may accelerate humoral immunity maturation and provide anti-inflammatory effects against pathogens.
Increasing studies show that gut microbiota play a central role in immunity, although the impact of the microbiota on mediation of thymic T cells throughout life is not well understood. Chickens have been shown to be a valuable model for studying basic immunology. Here, we show that changes in the gut microbiota are associated with the development of thymic T cells in young chickens. Our results showed that T-cell numbers in newborn chicks sharply increased from day 0 and peaked at day 49. Interestingly, the alpha-diversity score pattern of change in gut microbiota also increased after day 0 and continued to increase until day 49. We found that early antibiotic treatment resulted in a dramatic reduction in gut alpha diversity: principal component analysis (PCA) showed that antibiotic treatment resulted in a different cluster from the controls on days 9 and 49. In the antibiotic-treated chickens, we identified eight significantly different (p < 0.05) microbes at the phylum level and 14 significantly different (p < 0.05) microbes at the genus level, compared with the controls. Importantly, we found that antibiotic treatment led to a decreased percentage and number of T cells in the thymus when measured at days 9 and 49, as evaluated by flow cytometry. Collectively, our data suggest that intestinal microbiota may be involved in the regulation of T cells in birds, presenting the possibility that interventions that actively modify the gut microbiota in early life may accelerate the maturation of humoral immunity, with resulting anti-inflammatory effects against different pathogens.
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