Effects Of Corn Feed Forms And Age On Intestinal Microflora Of Geese

Goose intestinal microbial population is a complicated ecological environment, which plays an important role in digesting and absorbing nutrients and health of goose. This present study was conducted to investigate the effects of corn feed forms and age on intestinal microflora of goose by PCR-DGGE. One hundred and ninety two 7-day-old healthy Yangzhou geese were randomly assigned to 4 dietary treatments with 4 replicates and 12 geese with each replicate (6 males and 6 females) according to similar weight. Group F used mash corn diet all the periods. Group F-L used mash corn diet at 8~28 days as well as fed whole corn diet at 29~84 days. Group L-F used whole corn diet at 8~28 days as well as fed the mash corn diet at 29~84 days. Than, group L fed whole corn all the periods. The nutrition levels of diets in four groups were similar. The genomic DNA was extracted from the content of various intestinal segment of goose at the age of 28, 49, 70, 84 days. The V3 and V6-V8 variable regions of bacterial 16S rRNA were amplified with universal primer, and then amplicons were separated directly by DGGE in the denaturant range of 45%-60%. Some common and special bands were identified, cloned and quantitated, in order to investigate the diversity of the predominant eubacteria in the duodenal, jejunal, ileal and caecal digests at the age of 28, 49, 70 days. Moreover, this experiment was conducted to study the effects of corn feed forms on intestinal microflora at the age of 84 days. The results were drawn as follows:1. Intestinal microflora of geese in next days is effected by corn feed forms of the starter diet in early days. 2. The whole corn diet significantly decreased the bacterial community in jejunum but increased the microbial population in ileum. However, it had no significant effects on microbial population and bacterial community in duodenum and cecum of geese. The results indicated that corn feed forms affected intestinal microbial flora of jejunum and ileum mostly, colon followed and then duodenum and cecum of geese. The conclusion infered that the effects of whole corn diet on intestinal microflora could be due to the mean retention time increased of the total digestive tract by whole corn diet.3. The microbial population of geese have decreased in the group of whole corn diet but increased the microbial quantity.4. The microbial population of geese decreased from 28 to 70 days. The microbial quantity decreased when geese grew at 28 days, then increased at 49 days, following decreased at 70 days. The digestive tract development of gosling is in dynamic state.5. The bands of the predominant eubacteria in DGGE profiles have exceeded ten, especially in the cecum. The results revealed theat the microbial population and bacterial community of geese is so abundant in addtion to some less brighter bands. So affluent intestinal microbe is potentially precious resources.6. Comparison of genomic sequences in common bands and special bands by sequencing and BLAST analysis showed that, goose intestinal has 94%-100% similarity with Enterococcus columbae sp.., Streptococcus sp., Rothia-like sp., Staphylococcus aureus subsp., besides, mostly Uncultured bacterium clone. These Uncultured bacterium clone may be some new genus or species of microbe. It should be studied in future.7. PCR-DGGE is an effective method for goose intestinal bacterial diversity study. But in view of only detecting the predominant bacteria by DGGE and its shortcoming, DGGE should be applied with else methods, such as conventional culturing method or other biological technique. It can reflect microorganism diversity objective.