Abstract: Background – Recent evidence indicates that enteropathies are linked to changes in intestinal lipid metabolism, which correspond to alterations observed in the fecal lipid profiles of cats and dogs with acute and chronic enteropathies. Changes in specific fecal lipids (e.g., arachidonic acid, nervonic acid, cholesterol) have been recently reported as potential indicators of intestinal damage in companion animals. This study aimed to evaluate whether antibiotics, commonly given to animals with enteropathies, affect markers of lipid metabolism. Objective – Assessing the effect of amoxicillin-clavulanate (AMC) treatment on the fecal lipidome in cats. Animals – 13 healthy adult colony cats Methods – Previous prospective longitudinal study. Cats on a standardized diet were treated with AMC (12.5-15 mg/kg BW PO q12hrs) for 10 days. Fecal long-chain fatty acid and sterol profiles from baseline (day 0) and five follow-up samples (days 10-66) were assessed using a previously validated GC-MS assay. Friedman test and Dunn’s test for multiple comparisons were utilized for statistical analysis. Results – AMC induced no significant changes in the feline fecal lipidome. None of the individual lipid profiles differed in response to the treatment. The markers previously reported as potential indicators of mucosal damage, nervonic acid (p>0.9999), cholesterol (p>0.9999), and arachidonic acid (p=0.7111), were not significantly altered after treatment (day 10). Conclusions and clinical importance – The investigated fecal lipids were not affected by AMC. In the future, these biomarkers could therefore be useful in cats with intestinal diseases that have received antibiotics, as they remain unaffected by a common treatment.
