HoloFood - Unlocking a Holo-Omic framework for food production

HoloFood is a 'hologenomic' approach that will improve the efficiency of food production systems by understanding the biomolecular and physiological processes affected by incorporating feed additives and  novel sustainable feeds in farmed animals.

The HoloFood consortium will showcase the potential of an innovative solution that holds enormous potential for optimising modern food production. Specifically, HoloFood is a framework that integrates a suite of recent analytical and technological developments, that is applicable to any major animal food production system, spanning the full production line.

Thus it is as relevant for the farmers producing livestock, as it is to the associate industries such as those producing the feed and feed additives upon which the animal’s growth, quality, health and wellbeing depends.

HoloFood is a Horizon2020 Innovation Action, comprising of 11 organisations from across Europe

With the planet’s population rapidly increasing, one of the key global challenges of this century is to secure that the growing food production is performed in a sustainable fashion and with a low-carbon signature.
Optimising food production is thus not only of commercial interest for companies, but also of critical importance for humanity.

It is well known that gut microorganisms play a pivotal role in the health and growth of animals, and a balanced gut microbiota is essential for an optimal food production.

In the last decades, and in particular since the 2006 ban of using antibiotics to promote animal growth in the European Union, different strategies are being developed to modulate gut microbiomes aiming to improve food production, such as functional feed components or feed additives.

Feed additives have been proven effective at modulating microbiomes in many animal systems, although their efficiency often exhibits large variation.
The likely reason underlying such inconsistency, is the very limited knowledge we have about the specific means of action of the additives.

Understanding the effect of these additives is poorly understood, because the microorganisms of interest might interact with hundreds of other microbial taxa as well as the host organism.
Consequently, the procedures to improve the feed additive products are not as efficient as they could be, and it is unlikely that any truly optimal product can be found without drastically modifying the approach taken.

The Holo-omic Approach in HoloFood

The holo-omic approach considers the holobiont (host animal and its associated microbiota) as a single unit of action, across multiple molecular levels.

To achieve this, HoloFood takes advantage of large variety of new technological developments that allow us to understand the interactions between the animal and their respective gut microbiome on numerous molecular levels. In addition to this genetic data, HoloFood also incorporates a lot more information to the dataset, such as physiological and health information.

This approach enables us to move beyond simply showing that feed affects the physical make-up of an animal (for example growth, quality, health, welfare or even gut microbiome community structure), but to actually understanding how the feed, host and microbes interact to yield these differences in animals.

Picture of the hologenome concept. Salmon with it's respective microbiome and host genome — The Hologenome concept : The host and it's respective microbiome interact with each other Figure from Limborg M. et al 2018 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.12.006)

Image of the hologenomic domain linking environmental factors, host (animal), it's gut microbiome and host phenotype. The image shows interlink between environmental factors, host and gut microbiota — Biomolecular interactions between hosts (animals) and their respective microbiomes are triggered by environmental factors and yield very different results for each host (Figure from Limborg et al 2018 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.12.006)

The Animal Models for HoloFood

We will use two critically important farmed animal systems as our models – salmon and chicken – and use the newly developed holo-omic framework to characterize not only their associated gut microorganisms’ whole genomes, transcriptomes and metabolomes, but also their genomes, intestinal transcriptomes and intestinal immune processes, all in relation to production performance parameters and animal welfare.

Chicken Trials

HoloFood will analyse the impact of the interactions between feed additives (probiotic and prebiotic), gut microorganisms and host animals over relevant performance parameters, under three different commercially relevant feeding regimes.

Learn More

Salmon Trials

HoloFood will experiment with a novel functional feed component, (seaweed), and a novel protein source as a new sustainable alternative to fish meal.

Learn More

Our Objectives

HoloFood’s overall objective is to implement a timely technological solution based on cutting-edge biomolecular research in the food industry, which will:

1. Optimise animal food production systems by improving different stages of the production line.

2. Showcase the benefits of understanding the feed-microbiome-animal interactions through the application of state-of-the-art scientific methods to the food production sector and the general public.

Raise awareness

...of microbiome modulation approaches to improve food production systems, disseminate key results and train relevant users

Advance the holo-omic framework

... to increase efficiency and versatility to ensure applicability on a wider range of production environments and food production chain steps.

Identify host - microbiota interactions

... that relate to feeds and feed additives with production parameters of interest.

Generate a Holo-Omic database

... containing feed-host associated microbiota biomolecular information linked to production parameters of interest.

Design new strategies

...to optimise feeding and feed additive

administration strategies, decreasing our reliance on unsustainable food production practices.

Pilot in commercial environments

... validation through piloting under commercial production scale environments in poultry and aquaculture.

Evaluate the commercial and social impact of the HoloFood solution

Our Targets

The knowledge generated will be used to optimise the feed additive strategies implemented in food production, by tailoring them to the genetic background and developmental stage of the animals, as well as production environment.

In doing so we will improve the quantity, quality and safety of the produced food, as well as increase the sustainability of food production and animal welfare.

The ambition of the HoloFood solution is to create a versatile framework that can be applied in theory to any food production system that relies on the co-interaction of animals and their gut microorganisms.