Defining interactions between diet and season on gastrointestinal tract health and microbiome of domestic animals
Supervisors:
Rheinallt Jones, University of Glasgow
Tyler Stevenson, University of Glasgow
Pietro Iannetta, Agroecology Group, James Hutton Institute
Industry Partner - HARBRO Ltd
Summary:
The PhD project (Defining interactions between diet and season on gastrointestinal tract health and microbiome of domestic animals) aims to identify consistent seasonally induced changes to the GIT environment (microbiome and transcriptome) which are associated with both behavioural and systemic immunological decline. Furthermore, the project aims to investigate if in-diet bioactive compounds (polyphenols) found in locally grown legumes can mitigate potentially detrimental seasonally induced change in microbial population and systemic health. The identification of microbial and or tissue markers of seasonally induced change to the GIT will inform animal keepers when action should be taken to mitigate these and systemically associated effects. This mitigation could come in the form of the addition of polyphenols, which act to modulate the GIT microbiome, to the diet.
This project will provide training in animal handling, biological sample collection, and animal behaviour assessment. Laboratory training will include running physiological assays and food/plant chemistry assays. Whereas molecular training will be provided in DNA/RNA extraction and advanced transcriptome sequencing using Nanopore Flow cells on a GridION, including bioinformatic analysis. Further training will be provided during a 4-month internship. Specifically, students will be involved in industry-based research and development, technology transfer and public outreach.