Investigating gut homeostasis in stray animals across different air pollution zones.

Stray cats in highly polluted zones exhibit a 25% reduction in gut microbial diversity compared to those in clean areas, indicating significant microbiome disruption due to air pollution.

• Why it matters: Understanding how environmental air pollution impacts gut health is crucial, as it may reveal early indicators of systemic health risks in urban wildlife and humans, yet research has been limited to controlled models.
• What they did: The study analyzed fecal samples from stray cats across three pollution zones using 16S rRNA sequencing and metabolomics, identifying differentially abundant metabolites and disrupted lipid pathways.
• The result: Findings demonstrate that pollution-related gut microbiome and metabolome alterations could influence neuroactive pathways, suggesting systemic health effects and supporting urban cats as sentinel species for environmental health monitoring.