AUTHOR=Tous Núria , Marcos Sofia , Goodarzi Boroojeni Farshad , Pérez de Rozas Ana , Zentek Jürgen , Estonba Andone , Sandvang Dorthe , Gilbert M. Thomas P. , Esteve-Garcia Enric , Finn Robert , Alberdi Antton , Tarradas Joan TITLE=Novel strategies to improve chicken performance and welfare by unveiling host-microbiota interactions through hologenomics JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physiology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.884925 DOI=10.3389/fphys.2022.884925 ISSN=1664-042X ABSTRACT=

Fast optimisation of farming practices is essential to meet environmental sustainability challenges. Hologenomics, the joint study of the genomic features of animals and the microbial communities associated with them, opens new avenues to obtain in-depth knowledge on how host-microbiota interactions affect animal performance and welfare, and in doing so, improve the quality and sustainability of animal production. Here, we introduce the animal trials conducted with broiler chickens in the H2020 project HoloFood, and our strategy to implement hologenomic analyses in light of the initial results, which despite yielding negligible effects of tested feed additives, provide relevant information to understand how host genomic features, microbiota development dynamics and host-microbiota interactions shape animal welfare and performance. We report the most relevant results, propose hypotheses to explain the observed patterns, and outline how these questions will be addressed through the generation and analysis of animal-microbiota multi-omic data during the HoloFood project.