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

Significant differences in fecal metabolites from the tryptophan-serotonin-indole pathway were found in dogs with AHD compared to healthy control dogs. Further studies are needed to determine the clinical implications of these differences. Thirteen dogs diagnosed with idiopathic IBD, that previously failed to respond to treatment with elimination diets and metronidazole, were enrolled. Stool samples were collected from all dogs before initiating therapy with prednisone, after 3 and 8 weeks, and more than one year after beginning treatment. Thirteen healthy dogs were enrolled in the study as a control group. Stool samples were kept frozen at -80 o C until DNA extraction. The microbiota was characterized using Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Data were analyzed using Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME). Beta diversity was evaluated with the phylogeny based unweighted UniFrac distance metric, and statistics were performed with the Analysis of Similarities (ANOSIM).