GI20 - Standardized Preparation of Canine Fecal Transplant Material Does Not Alter Microbial Community Structure

Background: Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is the delivery of fecal material from a healthy donor into a diseased recipient to confer a health benefit. FMT is routinely delivered as a slurry via enema or nasogastric tube, but can also be encapsulated for convenient oral administration. The microbial impacts of processing feces for encapsulation are unknown.


Hypothesis/Objectives: We aimed to investigate if standardized fecal processing into a 10% glycerol FMT slurry alters the microbial community structure. We hypothesized that microbial community structure would not vary between processing steps.


Animals: Feces from four screened healthy canine fecal donors at The Ohio State University Companion Animal Fecal Bank were utilized for this study.


Methods: Batches of canine feces underwent a standardized FMT processing protocol. Samples from each donor, across multiple batches, were pulled from specific steps during processing and underwent DNA extraction and Illumina sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Amplicon sequence analysis was performed using MOTHUR, DADA2 and R-Studio.


Results: Analysis revealed significant differences in alpha diversity (Observed, Shannon index) and beta diversity (NMDS, Jaccard index) measures between donors. Within an individual donor, no significant differences were observed between processing steps (AMOVA). Sequence analysis using amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) and operational taxonomic units (OTUs) both yielded similar results.


Conclusions and clinical importance: Standardized FMT processing for encapsulation does not significantly alter the microbial composition of feces from healthy canine donors, further promoting the practicality of oral FMT administration in canine medicine. Additional studies evaluating microbial viability are required.