INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE & BIOLOGY ISSN Print: 1560–8530; ISSN Online: 1814–9596 13–154/2014/16–1–222–226 http://www.fspublishers.org

Short Communication

Culture Independent Analysis of Respiratory Microbiome of Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) Revealed Organisms of Public Health Significance

Muhammad Zubair Shabbir1*, JiHye Park2, Khushi Muhammad3, Masood Rabbani1, Muhammad Younus Rana4 and Eric Thomas Harvill2 1University Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54600, Pakistan 2Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16801, USA 3Department of Microbiology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54600, Pakistan 4College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (Jhang Campus) Jhang, Pakistan *For correspondence: [email protected]

Abstract

This paper describes the first culture independent analysis of respiratory microbiota of the endangered houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata), a migratory bird with the potential to spread pathogens over wide geographic areas. The 16S rRNA sequences showed high diversity with reads corresponding to 5 phyla; Proteobacteria (47.1%), (27.9%), Fusobacteria (14.2%), Firmicutes (7.4%) and Actinobacteria (3.42%). Most read were not assigned to lower taxa, indicating the presence of yet uncharacterized organisms. However, several organisms, including Myroides spp. MY15, Collinsella aerofaciens, Bacteroides fragillis, Enterococcus cecorum and Kurthia zopfii, are known to be associated with various clinical outcomes in other animals, including humans, indicating the zoonotic potential of houbara bustard. Further molecular and epidemiological studies are needed, particularly for Myroides spp. MY15, to understand their role in disease or health of houbara bustard as well as to determine the public health significance of these findings. © 2014 Friends Science Publishers

Keywords: Culture independent analysis; Houbara bustards; Myroides Spp. MY15; Respiratory microbiota

Introduction procedure (Nakamura et al., 2008). A number of novel organisms and/or their association to diseases similar to A number of bacterial pathogens of public health already known pathogens have been identified in recent significance, including Anaplasma phygocytophilum, years (Eckburg et al., 2005; Wylie et al., 2012). Borrelia burgdorferi, Pasteurella multocida, Houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) is included Compylobacter jejuni, Clostridium botulinum, among “IUCN red list of threatened species Pseudomonas aeroginosa and Mycobacterium avium, have (http://www.iucnredlist.org/)” largely due to over hunting been associated with the movement of free living birds and habitat loss to grazing. It is distributed across North either as biological and/or mechanical carriers (Sambyal and Africa, the Middle East and western Asia (Combreau et al., Baxi, 1980; Bailey et al., 2000a; Hubalek, 2004; Abulreesh 2011). Pakistan is included among important wintering et al., 2007; Khan, 2012; Dinev et al., 2013). In addition to grounds where a large number of them are being trapped the fact that only a small proportion (< 1%) of organisms is illegally for use in hunting (Bailey et al., 2000b). Attempts culturable (Schuster, 2008), highly variable and time have been made to conserve and rehabilitate them in recent consuming conventional microbiological procedures used years, placing humans in closer contact and raising the risk for different known pathogens further complicate accurate of zoonoses. Attempts to define the bacterial communities in and prompt diagnosis. Together, this provides a partial upper respiratory tract of houbara bustard have been limited representation of airway microbiota, and diminutive by the ability to culture these organisms (Bailey et al., prospect to determine or discover novel organism/pathogens 2000a, b; Silvanose et al., 2001). Here we describe the and their associ