Identification of Gut Microbiome and Metabolites Associated with Acute Diarrhea in CatsOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
Read MoreWhat was studied?
Researchers compared gut microbiome and metabolite profiles in American Shorthair and British Shorthair cats, each with either acute diarrhea or healthy stool, 12 cats per group.
How was it studied?
The multicenter case-control study used 16S rRNA sequencing, metagenomic sequencing, and untargeted metabolomics on fecal samples, then built a random forest classifier from the microbial data.
What did they find?
Diarrheic cats of both breeds had increased Bacteroidota, Prevotella, and Prevotella copri, and decreased Bacilli, Erysipelotrichales, and Erysipelatoclostridiaceae. Breed alone also shaped gut microbiota: healthy American Shorthairs carried more Prevotella, Providencia, and Sutterella but less Blautia, Peptoclostridium, and Tyzzerella than healthy British Shorthairs. Metabolomics found changes across 45 pathways in diarrheic British Shorthairs, and the microbial classifier predicted acute diarrhea with an area under the curve of 0.95.
Why it matters
The findings link specific bacterial shifts to feline acute diarrhea and show cat breed itself shapes baseline gut microbiota, a factor worth considering in microbiome-based diagnostics and animal nutrition research.