The present study describes rumen microbiota composition and their functional profiles in Indian Surti buffaloes by metagenomic (MG) and metatranscriptomic (MT) approaches. The study compares samples from buffaloes fed three different proportion of roughages; green and dry type of roughage; and different rumen liquor fractions. Irrespective of sample, Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were the most predominant bacterial phyla, followed by Proteobacteria, Fibrobacteres and Actinobacteria while, Prevotella, Bacteroides, Ruminococcus and Clostridium were the most abundant genera. Different proportions of taxa were observed in both MG and MT approaches indicating the differences in organisms present and organisms active in the rumen. Higher proportions of fungal taxa were observed in MT while important organisms like Fibrobacter and Butyrivibrio and abundant organisms like Bacteroides and Prevotella were underrepresented in MT data. Functionally, higher proportions of genes involved in Carbohydrate metabolism, Amino acid metabolism and Translation were observed in both data. Genes involved in Metabolism were observed to be underrepresented in MT data while, those involved in Genetic information processing were overrepresented in MT data. Further, genes involved in Carbohydrate metabolism were overexpressed compared to genes involved in Amino acid metabolism in MT data compared to MG data which had higher proportion of genes involved in Amino acid metabolism than Carbohydrate metabolism. In all significant differences were observed between both approaches, different fractions of rumen liquor (liquid and solid) and different proportions of roughage in diet.

本研究通过宏基因组学（MG）和超转录组学（MT）方法描述了印度Surti水牛中的瘤胃微生物群组成及其功能特征。该研究比较了饲喂三种不同比例粗饲料的水牛样本；绿色和干式粗饲料；和不同的瘤胃白酒级分。不论样品如何，拟杆菌和硬毛菌是最主要的细菌门，其次是变形杆菌，纤维杆菌和放线菌，而普氏杆菌，拟杆菌，鲁米诺球菌和梭状芽胞杆菌是最丰富的属 在MG和MT方法中均观察到不同比例的分类单元，表明存在的生物体和瘤胃中活动的生物体的差异。在MT中观察到较高比例的真菌类群，而重要的生物如纤维杆菌和Butyrivibrio以及丰富的生物如拟杆菌和普氏杆菌MT数据中的代表性不足。在功能上，在两个数据中均观察到参与碳水化合物代谢，氨基酸代谢和翻译的基因比例更高。观察到与代谢有关的基因在MT数据中的代表性不足，而与遗传信息处理有关的基因在MT数据中的代表性较高。此外，与MT数据相比，与糖代谢有关的基因与在MG数据中与氨基酸代谢有关的基因相比被过表达，而与MG数据相比，MG数据具有比碳水化合物代谢更高的氨基酸代谢所涉及的基因比例。两种方法之间都存在显着差异，不同比例的瘤胃液（液体和固体）和日粮中粗饲料的比例不同。