Evaluation of an Antibiotic Cocktail for Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Mouse
Jijun Tan, Jiatai Gong, Feng‐Cheng Liu, Baizhen Li, Zhanfeng Li, Jiaming You, He Jianhua, Shusong Wu
Abstract
Objective This study aimed to evaluate the effect of an antibiotic cocktail on gut microbiota and provide a reference for establishing an available mouse model for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) of specific microbes. Design C57BL/6J mice ( n = 24) had free access to an antibiotic cocktail containing vancomycin (0.5 g/L), ampicillin (1 g/L), neomycin (1 g/L), and metronidazole (1 g/L) in drinking water for 3 weeks. Fecal microbiota was characterized by 16S rDNA gene sequencing at the beginning, 1st week, and 3rd week, respectively. The mice were then treated with fecal microbiota from normal mice for 1 week to verify the efficiency of FMT. Results The diversity of microbiota including chao1, observed species, phylogenetic diversity (PD) whole tree, and Shannon index were decreased significantly ( P < 0.05) after being treated with the antibiotic cocktail for 1 or 3 weeks. The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes , Actinobacteria , and Verrucomicrobia was decreased by 99.94, 92.09, and 100%, respectively, while Firmicutes dominated the microbiota at the phylum level after 3 weeks of treatment. Meanwhile, Lactococcus , a genus belonging to the phylum of Firmicutes dominated the microbiota at the genus level with a relative abundance of 80.63%. Further FMT experiment indicated that the fecal microbiota from the receptor mice had a similar composition to the donor mice after 1 week. Conclusion The antibiotic cocktail containing vancomycin, ampicillin, neomycin, and metronidazole eliminates microbes belonging to Bacteroidetes , Actinobacteria , and Verrucomicrobia , which can be recovered by FMT in mice.