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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Comparative and Clinical Medicine
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1493756

Microbiological effect of topically applied Weissella cibaria on equine pastern dermatitis

Provisionally accepted
Eva Styková Eva Styková 1Igor Valocký Igor Valocký 1Jana Kačírová Jana Kačírová 2Livia Kolesar Fecskeova Livia Kolesar Fecskeova 3*
  • 1 University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Košice, Slovakia
  • 2 Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology (SAS), Nitra, Slovakia
  • 3 Faculty of Medicine, University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik, Kosice, Slovakia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Equine pastern dermatitis (EPD) is a multifactorial disease with a change in the skin microbiome. The present study monitored the influence of the Weissella cibaria Biocenol™ 4/8 D37 CCM 9015 stabilized on alginite on the skin microbiota of healthy horses and model patients with EPD. Based on clinical signs, EPD lesions were identified as exudative or proliferative forms. A comparison of the initial microbial community based on 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between healthy vs. exudative (R=0.52, p=0.003) and exudative vs. proliferative communities (R=0.78, p=0.043). The healthy skin microbiota was dominated by the families Corynebacteriaceae (19.7±15.8%) and Staphylococcaceae (15.8±10.7%). Streptococcus (11.7±4.1%) was the dominating genus in the exudative group together with Corynebacterium (11.0±3.8%), while Staphylococcus (15.6±14.5%) dominated the proliferative group. The genus Staphylococcus represented only 0.5% of the exudative skin microbial community, a major difference between the EPD-affected lesion types. Upon application there was a statistically significant shift in community composition in all the groups including the healthy community, however, the change was the most significant in the exudative community. On average, the genus Weissella represented 80 ±13.3% of the exudative and 49 ± 30% of the proliferative bacterial community during the treatment. One week after the application period, richness and diversity increased and were comparable in all groups. The application of W. cibaria strain was associated with a significant decrease of the genera Staphylococcus, Moraxella and Rothia in the proliferative group and with a decrease of Streptococcus and Clostridium in both exudative and proliferative groups. Based on our results, we conclude that a topically applied W. cibaria RIF R stabilized on alginite induced potentially beneficial shifts in the composition of skin microbiota.

    Keywords: Equine Pastern Dermatitis, horse, microbiota, Skin, Weissella cibaria

    Received: 09 Sep 2024; Accepted: 11 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Styková, Valocký, Kačírová and Fecskeova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Livia Kolesar Fecskeova, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik, Kosice, 040 11, Slovakia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.