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. 2021 Nov 22;11(11):3331.
doi: 10.3390/ani11113331.

Core Microbiome of Slovak Holstein Friesian Breeding Bulls' Semen

Juraj Medo  1 , Jana Žiarovská  2 , Michal Ďuračka  3 , Eva Tvrdá  3 , Štefan Baňas  3 , Michal Gábor  4 , Matúš Kyseľ  5 , Miroslava Kačániová  6   7
Affiliations

Core Microbiome of Slovak Holstein Friesian Breeding Bulls' Semen

Juraj Medo et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Bacterial contamination of semen is an important factor connected to the health status of bulls that may significantly affect semen quality for artificial insemination. Moreover, some important bovine diseases may be transmitted through semen. Up to now, only a very limited number of complex studies describing the semen microbiome of bulls have been published, as many bacteria are hard to cultivate using traditional techniques. The 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing strategy allows for the reliable identification of bacterial profiles of bovine semen together with the detection of noncultivable bacterial species. Fresh samples from Holstein Friesian breeding bulls (n = 55) were examined for the natural variability in the present bacteria. Semen doses were selected randomly from Slovak Biological Services in Nitra, Slovak Republic. The most predominant phyla within the whole dataset were Firmicutes (31%), Proteobacteria (22%), Fusobacteria (18%), Actinobacteria (13%) and Bacteroidetes (12%). Samples of semen were divided into two separate clusters according to their microbiome compositions using a cording partition around a medoids analysis. Microbiomes of the first cluster (CL1) of samples (n = 20) were based on Actinobacteria (CL1 average = 25%; CL = 28%) and Firmicutes (CL1 = 38%; CL2 = 27%), while the second cluster (CL2; n = 35) contained samples characterized by a high prevalence of Fusobacteria (CL1 = 4%; CL2 = 26%). Some important indicator microbial groups were differentially distributed between the clusters.

Keywords: 16S rRNA sequencing; Holstein Friesian breeding bulls; semen.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Nonmetric dimensional scaling (NMDS) scatterplot of semen samples acquired from clinically healthy breeding bulls. The samples were divided into two clusters according to the partition around a medoids (PAM) analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Diversity indices of microbial communities in the ejaculates of clinically healthy breeding bulls.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relative abundance of bacterial phyla present in ejaculates of clinically healthy breeding bulls.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Heatmap of the most abundant bacterial genera (at least 5% of any sample) present in the ejaculates of clinically healthy breeding bulls.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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