Regulation Effect of Toxocara canis and Anthelmintics on Intestinal Microbiota Diversity and Composition in Dog

Toxocara canis is an intestinal roundworm that can cause serious zoonotic parasitic diseases. Drontal Plus^® Tasty (Dog) is a kind of commercial drug used to treat T. canis infection. Febantel, Praziquantel, and Pyrantel pamoate (PP) are its main component. However, there are few studies investigating the impact of Drontal Plus^® Tasty (Dog) and its primary ingredients on the intestinal microbiota of dogs. In this study, we first collected the intestinal content samples of the dogs which administrated with anthelmintics or saline by sterile catheters, then used 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing technology combined with a variety of bioinformatic analysis methods to analyze the effect of anthelmintics on intestinal microbiota. First, the results of the α and β diversity analysis showed that the abundance and diversity of intestinal microbiota decreased with T. canis infection, and increased after anthelmintic treatment. Then, we found the dominant species (the value of relative abundance > 0.05) was both 28 on phylum and genus levels, besides the most dominant species was Bacillota on phylum level and Segatella and Clostridium_sensu_stricto were most dominant on genus level. Futher analyzing the differences in microbiotal composition on phylum level, we found that Drontal Plus^® Tasty treatment could significantly increase the proportion of Bacillota, while Febantel, Praziquantel, or PP could induce the significantly changes of Bacillota and Bacteroidota. In addition, by analyzing the differences in microbiotal composition on genus level, we found that anthelmintic could significantly decreased the relative abundance of Clostridium_sensu_stricto and significantly increased the abundance of Segatella. However, Drontal Plus^® Tasty had no regulatory effect on the abundance of Segatella. In short, these finding showed that various anthelmintics all have significant effects for changing the abundance and diversity of host intestinal microbiota.