Chronic dexamethasone exposure retards growth without altering the digestive tract microbiota composition in goats

Dexamethasone (Dex), an artificially synthetic cortisol substitute, is commonly used as an anti-inflammatory drug, and is also employed to mimic the stress state experimentally. It is well known that chronic stress disturbs the gut microbiota community and digestive functions. However, no relevant studies have been conducted in ruminants.In this study, a low dosage of Dex (0.2 mg/kg body weight, Dex group, n = 5) was consecutively injected...