This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of live yeast and yeast cell wall polysaccharides on growth performance, rumen function and plasma lipopolysaccharides (LPS) content and immunity parameters of beef cattle.  Forty Qinchuan cattle were randomly assigned to one of four treatments with 10 replicates in each treatment.  The dietary treatments were: control diet (CTR), CTR supplemented with 1 g live yeast (2×10¹⁰ live cell g^–1 per cattle per day (YST1), CTR supplemented with 2 g live yeast per cattle per day (YST2) and CTR supplemented with 20 g of yeast cell wall polysaccharides (30.0%≤β-glucan≤35.0%, and 28.0%≤mannanoligosaccharide≤32.0%) per cattle per day (YCW).  The average daily gain was higher (P=0.023) and feed conversion ratio was lower (P=0.042) for the YST2 than the CTR.  The digestibility of neutral detergent fiber (P=0.039) and acid detergent fiber (P=0.016) were higher in yeast supplemented groups.  The acetic acid:propionic acid of the YST2 was lower compared with the CTR (P=0.033).  Plasma LPS (P=0.032), acute phase protein haptoglobin (P=0.033), plasma amyloid A (P=0.015) and histamine (P=0.038) were lower in the YST2 compared with the CTR.  The copies of fibrolytic microbial populations such as Fibrobacter succinogenes S85, Ruminococcus albus 7 and Ruminococcus flavefaciens FD-1 of the YST2 were higher (P<0.001), while the copies of typical lactate producing bacteria Streptococcus bovis JB1 was lower (P<0.001) compared with the CTR.  Little differences were observed between the CTR, YST1 and YCW in growth performance, ruminal fermentation characteristics, microbial populations, immunity indices and total tract nutrient digestibility.  It is concluded that the YST2 could promote fibrolytic microbial populations, decrease starch-utilizing bacteria, reduce LPS production in the rumen and LPS absorption into plasma and decrease inflammatory parameters, which can lead to an improvement in growth performance in beef cattle. 

This study was conducted to investigate the phylogenetic diversity of archaea in the rumen of adult and elderly yaks.  Six domesticated female yaks, 3 adult yaks ((5.3±0.6) years old), and 3 elderly yaks ((10.7±0.6) years old), were used for the rumen contents collection.  Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing technology was applied to examine the archaeal composition of rumen contents.  A total of 92 901 high-quality archaeal sequences were analyzed, and these were assigned to 2 033 operational taxonomic units (OTUs).  Among these, 974 OTUs were unique to adult yaks while 846 OTUs were unique to elderly yaks; 213 OTUs were shared by both groups.  At the phylum level, more than 99% of the obtained OTUs belonged to the Euryarchaeota phylum.  At the genus level, the archaea could be divided into 7 archaeal genera.  The 7 genera (i.e., Methanobrevibacter, Methanobacterium, Methanosphaera, Thermogymnomonas, Methanomicrobiu, Methanimicrococcus and the unclassified genus) were shared by all yaks, and their total abundance accounted for 99% of the rumen archaea.  The most abundant archaea in elderly and adult yaks were Methanobrevibacter and Thermogymnomonas, respectively.  The abundance of Methanobacteria (class), Methanobacteriales (order), Methanobacteriaceae (family), and Methanobrevibacter (genus) in elderly yaks was significantly higher than in adult yaks.  In contrast, the abundance of Thermogymnomonas in elderly yaks was 34% lower than in adult yaks, though the difference was not statistically significant.  The difference in abundance of other archaea was not significant between the two groups.  These results suggested that the structure of archaea in the rumen of yaks changed with age.  This is the first study to compare the phylogenetic differences of rumen archaeal structure and composition using the yak model.