{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,28]],"date-time":"2026-03-28T06:16:15Z","timestamp":1774678575113,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,10]],"date-time":"2021-09-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1631232000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100010038","name":"Earmarked Fund for China Agriculture Research System","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100010038","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Immunol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Increasing studies show that gut microbiota play a central role in immunity, although the impact of the microbiota on mediation of thymic T cells throughout life is not well understood. Chickens have been shown to be a valuable model for studying basic immunology. Here, we show that changes in the gut microbiota are associated with the development of thymic T cells in young chickens. Our results showed that T-cell numbers in newborn chicks sharply increased from day 0 and peaked at day 49. Interestingly, the \u03b1-diversity score pattern of change in gut microbiota also increased after day 0 and continued to increase until day 49. We found that early antibiotic treatment resulted in a dramatic reduction in gut alpha diversity: principal component analysis (PCA) showed that antibiotic treatment resulted in a different cluster from the controls on days 9 and 49. In the antibiotic-treated chickens, we identified eight significantly different (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\u00a0&amp;lt;\u00a00.05) microbes at the phylum level and 14 significantly different (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\u00a0&amp;lt;\u00a00.05) microbes at the genus level, compared with the controls. Importantly, we found that antibiotic treatment led to a decreased percentage and number of T cells in the thymus when measured at days 9 and 49, as evaluated by flow cytometry. Collectively, our data suggest that intestinal microbiota may be involved in the regulation of T cells in birds, presenting the possibility that interventions that actively modify the gut microbiota in early life may accelerate the maturation of humoral immunity, with resulting anti-inflammatory effects against different pathogens.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fimmu.2021.700603","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,10]],"date-time":"2021-09-10T05:34:35Z","timestamp":1631252075000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Thymic T-Cell Production Is Associated With Changes in the Gut Microbiota in Young Chicks"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Jiaheng","family":"Cheng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yushan","family":"Yuan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fang","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jianwei","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Peng","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ying","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xia","family":"Yan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chenglong","family":"Luo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Dingming","family":"Shu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hao","family":"Qu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jian","family":"Ji","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"95","DOI":"10.1016\/bs.ircmb.2018.06.002","article-title":"Metabolism 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