Abstract
Fecal microbiota transplantation is widely used. Large intestinal microbiota (LIM) is more similar to fecal microbiota than small intestinal microbiota (SIM). The SIM communities are very different from those of LIM. Therefore, SIM transplantation (SIMT) and LIM transplantation (LIMT) might exert different influences. Here, healthy adult male C57Bl/6 mice received intragastric SIMT, LIMT, or sterile PBS administration. Microbiota graft samples were collected from small/large intestine of healthy mice of the same age, sex, and strain background. Compared with PBS treatment, SIMT increased pellet number, stool wet weight, and stool water percentage; induced a fecal microbiota profile shift toward the microbial composition of the SIM graft; induced a systemic anti-inflammatory cytokines profile; and ameliorated depressive-like behaviors in recipients. LIMT, however, induced merely a slight alteration in fecal microbial composition and no significant influence on the other aspects. In sum, SIMT, rather than LIMT, affected defecation features, fecal microbial composition, cytokines profile, and depressive-like behaviors in healthy mice. This study reveals the different effects of SIMT and LIMT, providing an interesting clue for further researches involving gut microbial composition change.
Highlights
The adult mammalian gastrointestinal tract harbors numerous and complex microorganisms, the gut microbiota, which creates an enormous and dynamic ecosystem in its host
One-way ANOVA revealed no significant differences among the control (CON) group, SIM transplantation (SIMT) group, and large intestinal microbiota transplantation (LIMT) group before microbiota transplantation in food intake (F2,15 = 0.054; n = 6; P = 0.947), water intake (F2,15 = 0.076; n = 6; P = 0.927), and body weight (F2,15 = 0.127; n = 6; P = 0.882) (Fig 1A–C)
One-way ANOVA revealed no significant differences before microbiota transplantation among the Pre-CON, Pre-SIMT, and Pre-LIMT in stool pellets number (F2,15 = 0.026; n = 6; P = 0.974), stool wet weight (F2,15 = 0.078; n = 6; P = 0.925), and stool water percentage (F2,15 = 0.002; n = 6; P = 0.998) (Fig 1D–F)
Summary
The adult mammalian gastrointestinal tract harbors numerous and complex microorganisms, the gut microbiota, which creates an enormous and dynamic ecosystem in its host. Fecal microbiota transplantation has been well established in lots of basic studies and clinical treatments of many disease conditions, such as Clostridioides difficile infections (Drekonja et al, 2015), inflammatory bowel disease (Paramsothy et al, 2017), cirrhosis (Bajaj et al, 2019), metabolic syndrome (de Groot et al, 2017), and depression-related disorders (Cai et al, 2019). This supports that fecal microbiota transplantation is an effective way to better uncover the influence of this microbiota on their host. This prompted us to hypothesize that SIM and large intestinal microbiota transplantation (LIMT) may exert different influences on their host
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