The Bos taurus maternal microbiome: Role in determining the progeny early-life upper respiratory tract microbiome and health.

Natural transference of maternal microbes to the neonate, especially at birth via the vaginal canal, has recently been recognized in humans and cows; however, its microbial influence on calf health has not yet been documented. We compared the bacterial communities in vaginal and fecal samples from 81 pregnant dairy cows versus those in nasopharyngeal and fecal samples collected at 3, 14 and 35 days of life from their respective progeny. The microbiota of the calf upper respiratory tract (URT), regardless of calf age, was found to be highly similar to the maternal vaginal microbiota.

Evaluation of milk sample fractions for characterization of milk microbiota from healthy and clinical mastitis cows.

Amplicon sequencing technique has been increasingly applied to the clinical setting as a sensitive diagnostic tool. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop a DNA extraction method that accurate isolates DNA from complex host-associated microbiota. Given the multifactorial etiology of clinical mastitis and the diversified lifestyle of bacterial species harboring in milk, here four distinct milk sample fractions: raw whole milk, milk fat, casein-pellet, and casein-pellet + fat from healthy cows and cows with clinical mastitis, were subjected to bead-beating DNA extraction, followed by high-throughput sequencing.