The Microbial Community in the Abscess Underneath the Skin of Goats

Abstract

The abscess underneath the skin is a common disease, which seriously affects the quality and yield of goat breeding. The main pathogens that cause abscesses are well understood, but the microbial community yet remains relatively unexplored. To determine the population and diversity of the microorganisms in the abscess underneath the skin of goats, in this work, 5 pus samples randomly collected from different goat farms (Jiangsu Province, China) were subjected to metagenomics sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. The test data show that the microbial communities of each sample contain about 79~82 kinds of microorganisms. Interestingly, each sample contained similar microbial species, including 53~59 kinds of bacteria, 5~6 fungi, 3 viruses, and 16~18 parasites. The top 5 dominant bacteria are Staphylococcus aureus, Lactococcus garvieae, Helicobacter pylori, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Klebsiella pneumoniae, with an average abundance value of 29.88 %, 8.2%, 6.16%, 3.5%, and 3.26%, respectively. The remaining microbial abundances ranged from 0.01% to 3%. Although each of these frequent microorganisms is a tiny part of the total community, they constitute a major portion of individual reads (~1/2). In the conclusion, Staphylococcus aureus is the most dominant but nonunique bacterium responsible for the abscess underneath the skin of the goat, and the microbial community in the subcutaneous abscess is highly diverse. Bacterial coinfection should play an important role.