Authors

MJ SABIR¹; R Low³; P Pinto²; A Tsaousis²; GR Hurle¹; KM Tyler¹; N Hall³;  ¹ University of East Anglia, UK;  ² University of Kent , UK;  ³ Earlham Institute, UK

Discussion

This study investigated the impact of Cryptosporidium infection on the gut microbiome of cattle. Cryptosporidiosis is a parasitic disease that can lead to significant economic losses amounting to billions of dollars worldwide. Using a bioinformatic pipeline based on shotgun metagenomic sequencing, we found that infection with Cryptosporidium spp. is associated with dysbiosis, a pronounced reduction in bacterial diversity in the gut microbiome of infected hosts. We also observe a positive correlation between the relative abundance of Cryptosporidium and potential pathogens of the genus fusobacterium in the microbiota.  The study highlights the importance of understanding the relationship between Cryptosporidium infection and gut microbiome alterations and how the gut microbiome differs between infected and uninfected hosts.