Research Communications of the 24th ECVIM-CA Congress

The probiotics used in the trial were supplied free of charge by the manufacturer. Canine Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is thought to be partially caused by an aberrant immune response towards the intestinal microbiome. In humans and mice, administration of probiotics can alleviate IBD severity and/or prevent relapse by induction of a more "tolerant"microenvironment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of probiotic Enterococcus faecium NCIMB 10415 E1707 (EF) on intestinal microbiome composition. Dogs were recruited to receive EF at 1x10e8 cfu in a double-blinded, placebo-controlled manner in addition to an exclusion diet (hydrolysed protein). Seven dogs were included in the probiotics group and 5 dogs in the placebo group. All dogs improved clinically after treatment, however, there was no obvious effect on clinical severity in those that received probiotics. Fresh naturally voided faecal samples were collected from all dogs before and after treatment, snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C until further analysis. Genomic DNA was extracted from each faecal sample using the Mobio Power soil DNA isolation Kit (MoBio Laboratories), as recommended by the manufacturer. Next generation sequencing was performed on the Ion-Torrent[TRADEMARK] (Life Technologies) platform based upon the V1-V3 region (E. coli position 27-519) of the 16S rRNA gene with the following primers: forward 28F: GAG-TTTGATCNTGGCTCAG and reverse 519R: GTNTTACN GCGGCKGCTG. Raw sequence data were screened, trimmed, filtered, and chimera depleted with default settings using the QIIME pipeline version 1.8 and UCHIME software, in which microbiome composition between treatment groups before and after treatment was compared.