Campus Units
Animal Science
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
5-2018
Journal or Book Title
The ISME Journal
Volume
12
Issue
5
First Page
1319
Last Page
1328
DOI
10.1038/s41396-018-0051-y
Abstract
The giant panda feeds almost exclusively on bamboo, a diet highly enriched in lignin and cellulose, but is characterized by a digestive tract similar to carnivores. It is still large unknown if and how the giant panda gut microbiota contributes to lignin and cellulose degradation. Here we show the giant pandas’ gut microbiota does not significantly contribute to cellulose and lignin degradation. We found that no operational taxonomic unit had a nearest neighbor identified as a cellulolytic species or strain with a significant higher abundance in juvenile than cubs, a very low abundance of putative lignin and cellulose genes existed in part of analyzing samples but a significant higher abundance of genes involved in starch and hemicellulose degradation in juveniles than cubs. Moreover, a significant lower abundance of putative cellulolytic genes and a significant higher abundance of putative α-amylase and hemicellulase gene families were present in giant pandas than in omnivores or herbivores.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Copyright Owner
The Authors
Copyright Date
2018
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Wenping; Liu, Wenbin; Hu, Rong; Zhang, Liang; Schmitz-Esser, Stephan; Sun, Huaibo; Xie, Junjin; Zhang, Yunfei; Wang, Chengdong; Li, Lifeng; Yue, Bisong; Huang, He; Wang, Hairui; Shen, Fujun; and Zhang, Zhihe, "Age-associated microbiome shows the giant panda lives on hemicelluloses, not on cellulose" (2018). Animal Science Publications. 514.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ans_pubs/514
Included in
Animal Sciences Commons, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Commons, Genetics and Genomics Commons
Comments
This article is published as Zhang, Wenping, Wenbin Liu, Rong Hou, Liang Zhang, Stephan Schmitz-Esser, Huaibo Sun, Junjin Xie et al. "Age-associated microbiome shows the giant panda lives on hemicelluloses, not on cellulose." The ISME journal 12, no. 5 (2018): 1319. doi: 10.1038/s41396-018-0051-y.