The horse's microbiota enters the race

In this article, we discuss the crucial role of the gut microbiota in horses and its impact on their energy metabolism, particularly in athletic horses. Studies have highlighted the influence of microbiota diversity in various contexts such as foal weaning, endurance exercise, and stall stress situations compared to pasture.

Further exploration of the gut microbiota opens up a promising prospect for more individualized animal nutrition, aimed at improving the well-being and health of horses. However, despite these advances, researchers acknowledge that a complete understanding of the interactions between gut microorganisms and the host organism is still a work in progress.

Researchers set out to create a gene catalog of the microorganisms making up the gut microbiota by analyzing that of 11 endurance horses. They identified over 25 million genes belonging to 4,696 different bacterial genera. These data were processed by bioinformatics to assemble 329 new complete bacterial genomes.

Mathematical models were used to correlate this information with physiological, cardiac and blood analyses during exercise. The results indicate a link between the composition of the microbiota and the cardiovascular capacity of horses during exercise, underlining the benefits of a diverse microbiota. Horses with a less diverse microbiota, particularly rich in bacteria of the Lachnospiraceae genus, showed less recovery after endurance exercise.

In conclusion, this breakthrough offers the prospect of an even more adapted and individualized animal diet, favoring the health and well-being of horses, as well as their natural sporting potential. This could involve specific nutritional adjustments and targeted use of probiotics.

Read the full article here!

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