The semen microbiome of miniature pony stallions

C. Giselle Cooke; Zamira Gibb; Christopher G. Grupen; Kathrin Schemann; Nandan Deshpande; Joanna E. Harnett

doi:10.1071/RD23117

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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The semen microbiome of miniature pony stallions

C. Giselle Cooke

^A ^* , Zamira Gibb

^B , Christopher G. Grupen

^C , Kathrin Schemann

^D , Nandan Deshpande ^D and Joanna E. Harnett

^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

^B Priority Research Centre in Reproductive Science, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.

^C Sydney School of Veterinary Science, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Camden, NSW 2570, Australia.

^D Sydney Informatics Hub, Core Research Facilities, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: coo7832@uni.sydney.edu.au

Handling Editor: Marc Yeste

Reproduction, Fertility and Development 36, RD23117 https://doi.org/10.1071/RD23117

Submitted: 5 July 2023 Accepted: 10 January 2024 Published online: 9 February 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Context

Little is known about the microbial composition of stallion semen.

Aims

To describe the microbiota detected in equine semen of healthy miniature pony stallions.

Methods

Semen specimens were collected using a Missouri artificial vagina at a single time point. PacBio (Pacific Biosciences) genomic DNA sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was performed on these specimens, following which next-generation microbiome bioinformatics platform QIIME2 was used to process fastq files and analyse the amplicon data. The data were categorised into genus, family, class, order and phylum.

Key results

Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes phyla predominated (76%), followed by Proteobacteria (15%). Bacteroidales, Clostridiales and Cardiobacteriales predominated the microbial rank of order (86%). Class was mainly composed of Bacteroidia, Clostridia and Gammaproteobacteria (87%), while family was mainly composed of Porphyromonadaceae, Family_XI and Cardiobacteriaceae (62%). At the level of genus, 80% of the abundance was composed of seven genera, namely Porphyromonas, Suttonella, Peptoniphilus, Fastidiosipila, Ezakiella, Petrimonas and an unknown taxon.

Conclusions

The findings indicate that specific microbiota may be characteristic of healthy miniature pony stallions’ semen with some inter-individual variations observed.

Implications

Larger equine studies involving fertile and infertile subjects could be informed by this study and could explore the relationship of the semen microbiome to male fertility.

Keywords: equine, fertility, microbiome, microbiota, pony, reproduction, semen, stallion.

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