Abstract: Due to the vital impacts of digestive tract microflora diversity on livestock health, it is particularly important to reveal the composition and function of the colonized microflora. However, the in vitro culture under the aerobic environment of some certain bacterial species which are colonized in the anaerobic environment of animals′ digestive tract is restricted. This results in deviations in analysis of dominant microflora in the digestive tract due to information missing. Some molecular biological methods are helpful to avoid this situation. These methods include sequencing methods as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, among which sequencing methods include fingerprint and high-throughput sequencing methods, and qualitative and quantitative analysis methods include fluorescent in situ hybridization and real-time quantitative PCR method. These methods are based on molecular biology level and can directly reveal the composition and function of the digestive tract microflora without the step of in vitro culture.This article describes the principles, advantages and disadvantages of these methods, and discusses their current applications in diversity analysis of animals′ digestive tract microflora. It provides a reference for the selection and combinative use of different molecular biological methods in digestive tract microflora analysis in livestock.

Key words: livestock, digestive tract microflora, sequencing methods, qualitative and quantitative analysis method, molecular biology