Guillermo Chumaceiro

The canine gut microbiome plays a key role in digestive, immune, and metabolic health and is increasingly recognized as an important indicator of overall animal well-being. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants are emerging as a promising approach to support intestinal balance through modulation of the gut microbiome. This pilot study evaluated the effects of Aloe vera, Artemisia annua, and Curcuma longa on the gut microbiome of healthy dogs. The study included eighteen healthy dogs, divided into an Experimental group (n = 9) and a Control group (n = 9). Dogs in the Experimental group received a daily combination of the three plants for 30 days, while Control dogs received microcrystalline cellulose as a placebo. Fecal samples were collected on Day 30 and analyzed using shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Differential abundance analysis revealed an enrichment of taxa associated with short-chain fatty acid production in the Experimental group, including Megasphaera elsdenii, Blautia, Butyricimonas, Bacteroides, and Phascolarctobacterium, together with a reduction in opportunistic and dysbiosis-associated taxa, such as Enterocloster bolteae, Anaerobiospirillum spp., and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Functional profiling showed a reduction in pathways related to virulence-associated mechanisms and iron siderophore systems, alongside an increase in pathways associated with GABA and putrescine metabolism and serine endopeptidase activity. Overall, these findings suggest that supplementation with these functional botanical ingredients may promote a more balanced and functionally beneficial gut microbiome in healthy dogs.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the ocular surface microbiota of patients with an anophthalmic cavity. An eNAT with 1 mL of Liquid Amies Medium was used to collect samples. Microbial DNA from anophthalmic socket and healthy fellow control eye samples was isolated and sequenced. Raw reads were analyzed with GAIA (v 2.02). The richness and Shannon alpha diversity metrics, as well as Bray–Curtis beta diversity and Wilcoxon signed-rank test values, were computed with R packages such as phyloseq, mia, or DESeq2 to allow for microbiome analysis. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) was performed using the function plotReducedDim from the R package scater. The different taxonomic profiles were described under the concept of eye community state type (ECST). The microbiomes of both eyes from 25 patients with an anophthalmic cavity were analyzed in this study. While the microbial communities of paired eyes from the same patients showed notable dissimilarity, no consistent patterns emerged when comparing healthy eyes to anophthalmic sockets. Alpha diversity values did not significantly differ between healthy eyes and anophthalmic socket samples, though there was considerable variability within each group. Notably, anophthalmic socket samples generally exhibited lower abundances of genera such as Staphylococcus, Enterococcus, Paenibacillus, and Sediminibacterium compared to their healthy counterparts. Microbial variability between healthy eyes and anophthalmic sockets may be due to anatomical differences. Further research is needed to determine whether patients without anophthalmic sockets exhibit similar microbiome patterns in both eyes.