Abstract
The microbiota hosted in the pig gastrointestinal tract are important to health of this biomedical model. However, the individual species and functional repertoires that make up the pig gut microbiome remain largely undefined. Here we comprehensively investigated the genomes and functions of the piglet gut microbiome using culture-based and metagenomics approaches. A collection included 266 cultured genomes and 482 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) that were clustered to 428 species across 10 phyla was established. Among these clustered species, 333 genomes represent potential new species. Less matches between cultured genomes and MAGs revealed a substantial bias for the acquisition of reference genomes by the two strategies. Glycoside hydrolases was the dominant category of carbohydrate-active enzymes. Four-hundred forty-five secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes were predicted from 292 genomes with bacteriocin being the most. Pan genome analysis of Limosilactobacillus reuteri uncover the biosynthesis of reuterin was strain-specific and the production was experimentally determined. This study provides a comprehensive view of the microbiome composition and the function landscape of the gut of weanling piglets and a valuable bacterial resource for further experimentations. IMPORTANCE The microorganism communities resided in mammalian gastrointestinal tract impacted the health and disease of the host. Our study complements metagenomic analysis with culture-based approach to establish a bacteria and genome collection and comprehensively investigate the microbiome composition and function of the gut of weanling piglets. We provide a valuable resource for further study of gut microbiota of weanling piglet and development of probiotics for prevention of disease.