Investigation of milk microbiota of healthy and mastitic Sahiwal cattle

Background Sahiwal cattle is an indigenous cattle breed of Pakistan and mastitis is one of the major problems faced by Sahiwal cattle which hinders its production potential.

The study was designed to investigate the milk microbiota of healthy and mastitic Sahiwal cattle as part of a multistep project to develop probiotics for the mitigation and control of mastitis.

Milk samples of Sahiwal cattle (healthy clinical mastitis and subclinical mastitis) reared under similar husbandry and management practices were processed for 16S rRNA gene base metagenomics analysis.

Results Results revealed that Proteobacteria were dominant in the healthy group and subclinical mastitis group (56.48% and 48.77%, respectively) as compared to the clinical mastitis group (2.68%).

In contrast, Firmicutes  were abundant in the clinical mastitis group (64%) as compared to the healthy and subclinical mastitis groups (15.87% and 38.98%, respectively).

Dominant species assigned in the healthy group were Ignavibacterium album , Novosphingobium capsulatum , Akkermansia muciniphila and Lactobacillus fermentum .

The clinical mastitis group was dominated by Streptococcus dysgalactiae and Corynebacterium bovis , while subclinical mastitis group included Lactobacillus fermentum and uncultured acidobacteriales and Akkermansia muciniphila as dominant species.

Alpha diversity indices showed higher microbial diversity in the healthy group compared to the clinical and sub-clinical mastitis groups.

Conclusion It is concluded that the milk microbiota of healthy sahiwal cattle has higher diversity and dominant taxa in the different groups may be used as signature microbes for mastitis susceptibility.

Akkermansia muciniphila is one of candidate specie that was identified and may be used for development of probiotics.