Project description:Early life exposure to antibiotics alters the gut microbiome. These alterations lead to changes in metabolic homeostasis and an increase in host adiposity. We used microarrays to identify metabolic genes that may be up- or down-regulated secondary to antibiotic exposure. Low dose antibiotics have been widely used as growth promoters in the agricultural industry since the 1950’s, yet the mechanisms for this effect are unclear. Because antimicrobial agents of different classes and varying activity are effective across several vertebrate species, we hypothesized that such subtherapeutic administration alters the population structure of the gut microbiome as well as its metabolic capabilities. We generated a model of adiposity by giving subtherapeutic antibiotic therapy (STAT) to young mice and evaluated changes in the composition and capabilities of the gut microbiome. STAT administration increased adiposity in young mice and altered hormones related to metabolism. We observed substantial taxonomic changes in the microbiome, changes in copies of key genes involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), increases in colonic SCFA levels, and alterations in the regulation of hepatic metabolism of lipids and cholesterol. In this model, we demonstrate the alteration of early life murine metabolic homeostasis through antibiotic manipulation. C57BL6 mice were divided into low-dose penicillin or control groups. Given antibiotics via drinking water after weaning. Sacrificed and liver sections collected for RNA extraction.
Project description:Early life exposure to antibiotics alters the gut microbiome. These alterations lead to changes in metabolic homeostasis and an increase in host adiposity. We used microarrays to identify metabolic genes that may be up- or down-regulated secondary to antibiotic exposure. Low dose antibiotics have been widely used as growth promoters in the agricultural industry since the 1950’s, yet the mechanisms for this effect are unclear. Because antimicrobial agents of different classes and varying activity are effective across several vertebrate species, we hypothesized that such subtherapeutic administration alters the population structure of the gut microbiome as well as its metabolic capabilities. We generated a model of adiposity by giving subtherapeutic antibiotic therapy (STAT) to young mice and evaluated changes in the composition and capabilities of the gut microbiome. STAT administration increased adiposity in young mice and altered hormones related to metabolism. We observed substantial taxonomic changes in the microbiome, changes in copies of key genes involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), increases in colonic SCFA levels, and alterations in the regulation of hepatic metabolism of lipids and cholesterol. In this model, we demonstrate the alteration of early life murine metabolic homeostasis through antibiotic manipulation.
Project description:Antibiotic induced microbiome depletion (AIMD) has been used frequently to study the role of the gut microbiome in pathological conditions. However, unlike germ-free mice, the effects of AIMD on host metabolism is unknown. We investigated the effects of AIMD in normal-chow fed mice to understand its effects on gut homeostasis, luminal signaling, and metabolism. We show that AIMD, which decreases luminal Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes species, decreases baseline serum glucose levels, reduces glucose surge in a tolerance test, and improves insulin sensitivity without altering adiposity. These occur in the setting of decreased luminal short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), especially butyrate, and secondary bile acid (BA) pool, which affects whole-body BA metabolism. In mice, AIMD alters cecal gene expression and gut GLP-1 signaling. Extensive tissue remodeling and decreased availability of SCFAs shift colonocyte metabolism toward glucose utilization. Hence, AIMD alters whole-body glucose homeostasis by potentially shifting colonocyte energy utilization from SCFAs to glucose.
Project description:Early-life antibiotic exposure perturbs the intestinal microbiota, alters innate intestinal immunity, and accelerates type 1 diabetes development in the NOD mouse model. Here we found that maternal cecal microbiota transfer (CMT) to NOD mice with early-life antibiotic perturbation partially rescued the induced T1D acceleration. The restoration effects on the intestinal microbiome were substantial and persistent, remediating the antibiotic-depleted diversity, relative abundance of particular taxa, and metabolic pathways. CMT also protected against perturbed cecal and serum metabolites and normalized innate and adaptive immune effectors. CMT restored patterns of ileal microRNA and histone regulation of gene expression and exon-splicing. Based on the analyses of experimental data, we propose an innate intestinal immune network involving CD44, TLR2, and Reg3g, as well as their multiple microRNA and epigenetic regulators that sense intestinal signaling by the gut microbiota. This regulation affects downstream immunological tone, leading to protection against the tissue-specific T1D injury.
Project description:The diverse bacterial communities that colonize the gastrointestinal tract play an essential role in maintaining immune homeostasis through the production of critical metabolites such as short chain fatty acids (SCFA), and this can be disrupted by antibiotic use. However, few studies have addressed the effects of specific antibiotics longitudinally on the microbiome and immunity. We evaluated the effects of four specific antibiotics; enrofloxacin, cephalexin, paromomycin, and clindamycin; in healthy female rhesus macaques. All antibiotics disrupted the microbiome, including reduced abundances of fermentative bacteria and increased abundances of potentially pathogenic bacteria, including Enterobacteriaceae in stool, and decreased Helicobacteraceae in the colon. This was associated with decreased SCFAs, indicating altered bacterial metabolism. Importantly, antibiotic use also substantially altered local immune responses, including increased neutrophils and Th17 cells in the colon. Furthermore, we observed increased soluble-CD14 in plasma, indicating microbial translocation. These data provide a longitudinal evaluation of antibiotic-induced changes to the composition and function of colonic bacterial communities, associated with specific alterations in mucosal and systemic immunity.
Project description:Vancomycin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic widely used in cases of suspected sepsis in premature neonates. While appropriate and potentially lifesaving in this setting, early life antibiotic exposure alters the developing microbiome and is associated with increased risk of deadly complications, including late-onset sepsis (LOS) and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Recent studies show that neonatal vancomycin treatment disrupts postnatal enteric nervous system (ENS) development in mouse pups, which is in part dependent upon neuro-immune interactions. This suggests that early life antibiotic exposure could disrupt these interactions in the neonatal gut. Notably, a subset of tissue-resident intestinal macrophages, muscularis macrophages, have been identified as important contributors to the development of the postnatal ENS. We hypothesized that vancomycin-induced neonatal dysbiosis impacts postnatal ENS development through effects on macrophages. Using a mouse model, we found that exposure to vancomycin in the first ten days of life, but not in adult mice, resulted in an expansion of pro-inflammatory colonic macrophages by increasing the recruitment of bone-marrow derived macrophages. Single cell RNA sequencing of neonatal colonic macrophages revealed that early-life vancomycin exposure was associated with an increase in immature and inflammatory macrophages, consistent with an influx of circulating monocytes differentiating into macrophages. Lineage tracing confirmed that vancomycin significantly increased non-yolk sac derived macrophage population. Consistent with these results, early life vancomycin exposure did not expand the colonic macrophage population nor decrease enteric neuron density in CCR2 deficient mice. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that early life vancomycin exposure alters macrophage number and phenotypes in distinct ways compared to vancomycin exposure in adult mice and results in altered ENS development.
Project description:Staphylococcus aureus is responsible for a substantial number of invasive infections globally each year. These infections are problematic because they are frequently recalcitrant to antibiotic treatment. Antibiotic tolerance, the ability of bacteria to persist despite normally lethal doses of antibiotics, contributes to antibiotic treatment failure in S. aureus infections. To understand how antibiotic tolerance is induced, S. aureus biofilms exposed to multiple anti-staphylococcal antibiotics were examined using both quantitative proteomics and transposon sequencing. These screens indicated that arginine metabolism is involved in antibiotic tolerance within a biofilm and led to the hypothesis that depletion of arginine within S. aureus communities can induce antibiotic tolerance. Consistent with this hypothesis, inactivation of argH, the final gene in the arginine synthesis pathway, induces antibiotic tolerance. Arginine restriction was found to induce antibiotic tolerance via inhibition of protein synthesis. In a mouse skin infection model, an argH mutant has enhanced ability to survive antibiotic treatment with vancomycin, highlighting the relationship between arginine metabolism and antibiotic tolerance during S. aureus infection. Uncovering this link between arginine metabolism and antibiotic tolerance has the potential to open new therapeutic avenues targeting previously recalcitrant S. aureus infections.
Project description:Early-life antibiotic exposure perturbs the intestinal microbiota, alters innate intestinal immunity, and accelerates type 1 diabetes development in the NOD mouse model. Here we found that maternal cecal microbiota transfer (CMT) to NOD mice with early-life antibiotic perturbation partially rescued the induced T1D acceleration. The restoration effects on the intestinal microbiome were substantial and persistent, remediating the antibiotic-depleted diversity, relative abundance of particular taxa, and metabolic pathways. CMT also protected against perturbed cecal and serum metabolites and normalized innate and adaptive immune effectors. CMT restored patterns of ileal microRNA and histone regulation of gene expression and exon-splicing. Based on the analyses of experimental data, we propose an innate intestinal immune network involving CD44, TLR2, and Reg3g, as well as their multiple microRNA and epigenetic regulators that sense intestinal signaling by the gut microbiota. This regulation affects downstream immunological tone, leading to protection against the tissue-specific T1D injury.
Project description:Early-life antibiotic exposure perturbs the intestinal microbiota, alters innate intestinal immunity, and accelerates type 1 diabetes development in the NOD mouse model Here we found that maternal cecal microbiota transfer (CMT) to NOD mice with early-life antibiotic perturbation partially rescued the induced T1D acceleration The restoration effects on the intestinal microbiome were substantial and persistent, remediating the antibiotic-depleted diversity, relative abundance of particular taxa, and metabolic pathways CMT also protected against perturbed cecal and serum metabolites and normalized innate and adaptive immune effectors CMT restored patterns of ileal microRNA and histone regulation of gene expression and exon-splicing Based on the analyses of experimental data, we propose an innate intestinal immune network involving CD44, TLR2, and Reg3g, as well as their multiple microRNA and epigenetic regulators that sense intestinal signaling by the gut microbiota This regulation affects downstream immunological tone, leading to protection against the tissue-specific T1D injury
Project description:The human pathogenic bacterium Listeria monocytogenes was exposed to antibiotics both during clinical treatment and as a saprophyte. As one of the keys to successful treatment is continued antibiotic sensitivity, the purpose of this study was to determine if exposure to sublethal antibiotic concentrations would affect the bacterial physiology and potentially induce tolerance to antibiotics. Transcriptomic analyses demonstrated that each of four antibiotics caused a compound-specific gene expression pattern related to (the) mode-of-action of the particular antibiotic. All four antibiotics caused the same changes in expression of several metabolic genes indicating a shift from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism driven by the induction of lmo1634 and the repression of alsA and lmo1992. This shift in metabolism could be a survival strategy in response to antibiotics and is further supported by the observation that a Îlmo1634 mutant was more sensitive to bactericidal antibiotics. The monocin locus encoding a cryptic prophage was induced by co-trimoxazole and repressed by ampicillin and gentamicin. This expression pattern correlated with the observed antibiotic-dependent biofilm formation, indicating a role of monocin in antibiotic-induced biofilm formation and a ÎlmaDCBA mutant confirmed this correlation. Thus, sublethal concentrations of antibiotics caused metabolic and physiological changes indicating that the organism is preparing to withstand lethal concentrations of antibiotics. Investigation of mRNA and sRNA expression profiles of L. monocytogenes EGD cells exposed to sublethal concentrations of four different antibiotics i.e. ampicillin, tetracycline, gentamicin and co-trimoxazole for 3h.