Effects of Antibiotic Treatment with Piperacillin/Tazobactam versus Ceftriaxone on the Composition of the Murine Gut Microbiota
Carola Venturini, Bethany Bowring, Alicia Fajardo Lubián, Carol M. Devine, Jonathan R. Iredell
Abstract
blooms occurred in all antibiotic-treated mice, but for TZP, unlike CRO, these were significant only under direct antibiotic pressure. At the height of dysbiosis after antibiotic termination, the murine gut was highly susceptible to colonization with both multidrug-resistant enterobacterial pathogens. Cohabitation of treated mice with untreated individuals had a notable mitigating effect on dysbiosis of treated guts. The administration of a third-generation cephalosporin caused a more severe imbalance in the murine fecal microflora than that caused by a penicillin/β-lactam inhibitor combination with comparable activity against medically important virulent bacteria. At the height of dysbiosis, both antibiotic treatments equally led to microbial instability associated with loss of resistance to gut colonization by antibiotic-resistant pathogens.