The microbiome of the soft palate of swine

The tonsil of the soft palate in pigs is a secondary lymphoid tissue that provides a first line of defense against foreign antigens entering by the mouth or nares. It has been known for a long time to be the site of colonization of important swine and zoonotic bacterial pathogens. Initially our understanding of microbes present at this site came from culture-based studies. Very recently, sequence-based approaches have been used to identify the core microbiome of the swine tonsil. Although animal to animal and herd to herd variation was detected in these studies, >90 of the organisms detected belonged to the phyla Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. Members of the family Pasteurellaceae appeared to be predominate in the tonsil; however, the relative proportions of Actinobacillus, Haemophilus, and Pasteurella varied. Members of the families Moraxellaceae, Fusobacteriaceae, Veillonellaceae, and Neisseriaceae were also seen as frequent residents of the tonsil.