• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.175-182
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• 2023

Antibiotics have been used in livestock production for not only treatment but also for increasing the effectiveness of animal feed, aiding animal growth, and preventing infectious diseases at the time when immunity is lowered due to stress. South Korea and the EU are among the countries that have prohibited the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in order to prevent indiscriminate use of antibiotics, as previous studies have shown that it may lead to increase in cases of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Therefore, this study evaluated the number of antibiotic resistance genes in piglets staging from pre-weaning to weaning. Fecal samples were collected from 8 piglets just prior to weaning (21 d of age) and again one week after weaning (28 d of age). Total DNA was extracted from the 200 mg of feces collected from the 8 piglets. Whole metagenome shotgun sequencing was carried out using the Illumina Hi-Seq 2000 platform and raw sequence data were imported to Metagenomics Rapid Annotation using Subsystem Technology (MG-RAST) pipeline for microbial functional analysis. The results of this study did not show an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria although confirmed an increase in antibiotic-resistant genes as the consequence of changes in diet and environment during the experiment.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2023

The foodborne illness is the important public health concerns, and the livestock feces are known to be one of the major reservoirs of foodborne pathogens. Also, it was reported that 45.5% of foodborne illness outbreaks have been associated with the animal products contaminated with the livestock feces. In addition, it has been known that the persistence of a pathogens depends on many potential virulent factors including the various virulent genes. Therefore, the first step to understanding the public health risk of livestock feces is to identify and describe microbial communities and potential virulent genes that contribute to bacterial pathogenicity. We used the whole metagenome shotgun sequencing to evaluate the prevalence of foodborne pathogens and to characterize the virulence associated genes in pig and chicken feces. Our data showed that the relative abundance of potential foodborne pathogens, such as Bacillus cereus was higher in chickens than pigs at the species level while the relative abundance of foodborne pathogens including Campylobacter coli was only detected in pigs. Also, the microbial functional characteristics of livestock feces revealed that the gene families related to "Biofilm formation and quorum sensing" were highly enriched in pigs than chicken. Moreover, the variety of gene families associated with "Resistance to antibiotics and toxic compounds" were detected in both animals. These results will help us to prepare the scientific action plans to improve awareness and understanding of the public health risks of livestock feces.