Project description:Fecal samples collected on day 5 from randomly selected colitic SD rats were analyzed for gut microbiota by sequencing the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. The orally administered Dex-P-laden NPA2 coacervate (Dex-P/NPA2) significantly restores the diversity of gut microbiota compared with colitic SD rats in the Dex-P/PBS group and the untreated colitic rats (Control).
Project description:We used 16S V3/V4 region amplification to evaluate the composition of bacteria species in mouse fecal pellets. Fecel pellets were collected from young-adult (12 weeks old) wild type C57Bl/6 mice and aged (72 weeks old) wild type C57Bl/6 mice after 21 days of vehicle or antibiotics treatment (to induce gut microbiota depletion). In one sequencing round, we sequenced a total of 12 different fecal samples (3 young control, 3 aged control, 3 young depleted gut microbiota (ABX) and 3 aged depleted gut microbiota (ABX)). Amplicons were indexed using the Nextera XT Index Kit and pooled into a library for Illumina sequencing.
Project description:The gut microbiome is known to be sensitive to changes in the immune system, especially during autoimmune diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Our study examines the changes to the gut microbiome that occur during Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model for MS. We collected fecal samples at key stages of EAE progression and quantified microbial abundances with 16S V4 amplicon sequencing. Our analysis of the data suggests that commensal Lactobacillaceae fall in abundance during EAE while other commensal populations belonging to the Clostridiaceae, Ruminococcaceae, and Peptostreptococcaceae families expand. Community analysis with microbial co-occurrence networks points to these three taxa as mediators of gut microbiome dysbiosis. We also employed PICRUSt2 to impute MetaCyc Enzyme Consortium (EC) pathway abundances from the original microbial abundance data. From this analysis, we found that a number of imputed EC pathways responsible for the production of compounds with indole groups are enriched in mice undergoing EAE. Our analysis and interpretation of results provides a detailed picture of the changes to the gut microbiome that are occurring throughout the course of EAE disease progression.