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Exercise in young horses is common but impacts on gut microbial profiles and systemic cytokines are unknown. Quarter Horse yearlings (mean ± SEM; 496 ± 12 d of age; 343 ± 28 kg BW) were used to test the hypothesis that exercise would increase beneficial gut microbial profiles and decrease serum inflammatory cytokines. Horses were balanced by age, BW, and sex and randomly assigned to non-exercise control (CON; n = 10), dry treadmill exercise (DRY; n = 10), or aquatic treadmill exercise (H2O; n = 10; water at 60% wither height). Horses were stalled 12 h/d, 5 d/wk but otherwise housed in dry lots. Horses individually received 1.25% BW/d (as-fed) commercial concentrate and ad libitum Coastal bermudagrass hay. From d0 to 112, DRY and H2O walked on treadmills 30 min/d, 5 d/wk. Workload for DRY and H2O then increased to moderate intensity on a free-stall exerciser 5 d/wk to d140. Serum and fecal samples were collected on d0, 112, and 140. Serum was analyzed for interleukin (IL)-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, growth related oncogene (GRO), and tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) concentrations via commercial bead-based ELISA. The V4 region of 16S rRNA gene was amplified from fecal community DNA using universal primers. Resulting amplicons were sequenced (2 × 250bp PE) using Illumina's NovaSeq 6000, processed using DADA2 pipeline, and analyzed using R vegan package. Significant (P |
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