Cecal microbiome transplantation from MRL/MPJ mice prevents post-traumatic osteoarthritis in C57BL6/J mice

Abstract

Purpose: MRL/MpJ mice are substantially protected from developing post-traumatic osteoarthritis (OA), a trait with strong correlation to the ability to heal ear wounds. We have previously shown that this ear wound healing trait is partially determined by the gut microbiome, and that gut microbial transplantation into non-healer mice can confer the ear wound healing phenotype. In this study, we sought to examine whether microbiome-mediated cartilage regeneration extended to protection against post-traumatic osteoarthritis.