Comparative analysis of oral-gut microbiota between captive and wild long-tailed macaque in Thailand

Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), distributed in Southeast Asia, are generally used in biomedical research. At present, the expansion of human communities overlapping of macaques’ natural habitat causes human-macaque conflicts. To mitigate this problem in Thailand, the National Primate Research Center of Thailand, Chulalongkorn University (NPRCT-CU), was granted the permit to catch the surplus wild-born macaques and transfer them to the center. Based on the fact that the diets provided and the captive environments were different, their oral-gut microbiota should be altered. Thus, we investigated and compared the oral and fecal microbiome between wild-born macaques that lived in the natural habitats and those transferred to and reared in the NPRCT-CU for 1 year. The results from 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing showed that the captive macaques had distinct oral-gut microbiota profiles and lower bacterial richness compared to those in wild macaques. The gut of wild macaques was dominated by Firmicutes which is probably associated with lipid absorption and storage. These results implicated the effects of captivity conditions on the microbiome that might contribute to crucial metabolic functions. Our study should be applied to the animal health care program, with respect to microbial functions, for non-human primates.