2018 ACVIM Forum Research Abstract Program: Seattle, Washington, June 14 - 15, 2018

Statistical significance was set to p< 0.05. Correlations between abundance of bacterial taxa and the macronutrients were performed using Spearman';s correlations. Significance was set at p< 0.05. In conclusion, a significant correlation was found only between crude fiber and Fusobacterium. Results suggest that the macronutrient content in commercial diets has only modest impact on the abundance of major bacterial taxa in the canine microbiota. The study of lipids in biological fluids has led to substantial advances in diagnosis and therapeutics of human obesity, cancer, and kidney diseases. Considering that most of these conditions also afflict cats, we hypothesize that lipids could also serve as biomarkers for studying and diagnosing diseases in cats. However, the study of lipids in feline plasma has been limited to a few number of lipid species, mainly, fatty acids and triacylglycerols, whereas it is yet unknown if the feline urine contains any lipids. Considering this gap of knowledge, the objective of this study was to characterize the lipid composition in plasma and urine samples collected from clinically healthy young-adult cats (n=8).