Abstract
Gut microbiota plays multiple important roles in intestinal and physiological homeostasis, and using fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) to reprogram gut microbiota has demonstrated promise for redressing intestinal and physiological disorders. This study tested the alterations in reprogramming efficiency caused by different gut preparation procedures and explored the associated underlying mechanisms. We prepared the guts of mice for FMT by administering one of the three most-clinically used pretreatments [antibiotics, bowel cleansing (BC) solution, or no pretreatment], and we found that preparing the gut with antibiotics induced a more efficient modification of the gut bacterial community than was induced by either of the other two pretreatment types. The increased efficiency of antibiotic treatment appeared to occur via increasing the xenomicrobiota colonization. Further analysis demonstrated that antibiotic treatment of mice induced intestinal microbiota disruption, mostly by expelling antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, while the indigenous microbiota was maintained after treatment with a BC solution or in the absence of pretreatment. The amount of antibiotic-resistant bacteria increased shortly after antibiotics usage but subsequently decreased after FMT administration. Together, these results suggest that FMT relied on the available niches in the intestinal mucosa and that preparing the gut with antibiotics facilitated xenomicrobiota colonization in the intestinal mucosa, which thus enhanced the overall gut microbiota reprogramming efficiency.
Highlights
The intestinal microbial ecosystem plays a variety of important roles in animal physiology and gut homeostasis (Clemente et al, 2012; Tremaroli and Bäckhed, 2012; Boulangé et al, 2016)
Previous work investigated the therapeutic effects of gut preparation with antibiotics or a Moviprep solution prior to performing fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) (Manges et al, 2016), but the efficiency of microbiota alteration caused by these pretreatments has not been tested
Our data demonstrate that FMT can reprogram the intestinal microbiota by introducing xenomicrobiota, but the efficiency is adjustable, and by preparing the gut with antibiotics, FMT efficiency can be elevated in the colon more than it can by preparing the gut with bowel cleansing (BC) or in the absence of a pretreatment
Summary
The intestinal microbial ecosystem plays a variety of important roles in animal physiology and gut homeostasis (Clemente et al, 2012; Tremaroli and Bäckhed, 2012; Boulangé et al, 2016). Reprogramming gut microbiota is a promising approach to redressing intestinal and physiological disorders (Cammarota et al, 2014; Petrof and Khoruts, 2014; Zheng et al, 2016). Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is considered an efficient approach to gut microbiota reprogramming through introducing xenomicrobiota into the gut (Cammarota et al, 2014; Khoruts and Sadowsky, 2016; Li et al, 2016; Manges et al, 2016), and has been recommended to be performed therapeutically (Bagdasarian et al, 2015; Cammarota et al, 2017). There remains a knowledge gap on how to increase FMT efficiency, and the alteration efficiency of gut microbiota reprogramming by FMT in the gut mucosa has not been fully elucidated
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