The genus Babesia includes parasites that can induce human and animal babesiosis, which are common in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The gut microbiota has not been examined in hamsters infected by Babesia duncani. Red blood cells infected with B. duncani were injected into hamsters through intraperitoneal route. To evaluate the changes in gut microbiota, DNAs were extracted from small intestinal contents, acquired from hamsters during disease development. Then, the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene of bacteria was sequenced using the Illumina sequencing platform. Gut microbiota alternation and composition were assessed according to the sequencing data, which were clustered with >97.0% sequence similarity to create amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were made up of the major components of the gut microbiota in all samples. The abundance of Bacteroidetes elevated after B. duncani infection than the B. duncani-free group, while Firmicutes and Desulfobacterota declined. Alpha diversity analysis demonstrated that the shown ASVs were substantially decreased in the highest parasitemia group than B. duncani-free and lower parasitemia groups. Potential biomarkers were discovered by Linear discriminant analysis Effect Size (LEfSe) analysis, which demonstrated that several bacterial families (including Muribaculaceae, Desulfovibrionaceae, Oscillospiraceae, Helicobacteraceae, Clostridia UGG014, Desulfovibrionaceae, and Lachnospiraceae) were potential biomarkers in B. duncani-infected hamsters. This research demonstrated that B. duncani infectious can modify the gut microbiota of hamsters.
Citations
Citations to this article as recorded by
Nationwide investigation of eukaryotic pathogens in ticks from cattle and sheep in Kyrgyzstan using metabarcoding Singeun Oh, Nathalie Amvongo-Adjia, Hyun Jung Kim, Jun Ho Choi, Xavier Chavarria, Myung-hee Yi, Arwa Shatta, Bekbolsun Aknazarov, Ju Yeong Kim, Jung-Won Ju, Bekir Oguz PLOS One.2025; 20(8): e0327953. CrossRef
Eimeria infections of plateau pika altered the patterns of temporal alterations in gut bacterial communities Maoping Li, Suqin Wang, Liang Zhong, Petr Heděnec, Zhaoxian Tan, Rong Wang, Xinyang Chen, Yan Zhang, Bingmin Tang, Huakun Zhou, Jiapeng Qu Frontiers in Microbiology.2024;[Epub] CrossRef
Atractylenolide-I Alleviates Hyperglycemia-Induced Heart Developmental Malformations through Direct and Indirect Modulation of the STAT3 Pathway Mengwei Wang, Tong-hua Zhang, Yunjin Li, Xiaofeng Chen, Qiongyin Zhang, Ying Zheng, Denglu Long, Xin Cheng, An Hong, Xuesong Yang, Guang Wang Phytomedicine.2024; 129: 155698. CrossRef
Qi Huang Fang improves intestinal barrier function and intestinal microbes in septic mice through NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated cellular pyroptosis Tingting Shu, Jun Zhang, Ruiying Hu, Fang Zhou, Hanyong Li, Jing Liu, Yanbo Fan, Xucheng Li, Peiwu Ding Transplant Immunology.2024; 85: 102072. CrossRef