A history of repeated antibiotic usage leads to microbiota-dependent mucus defectsShow others and affiliations
2024 (English)In: Gut microbes, ISSN 1949-0976, E-ISSN 1949-0984, Vol. 16, no 1, article id 2377570Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Recent evidence indicates that repeated antibiotic usage lowers microbial diversity and ultimately changes the gut microbiota community. However, the physiological effects of repeated–but not recent–antibiotic usage on microbiota-mediated mucosal barrier function are largely unknown. By selecting human individuals from the deeply phenotyped Estonian Microbiome Cohort (EstMB), we here utilized human-to-mouse fecal microbiota transplantation to explore long-term impacts of repeated antibiotic use on intestinal mucus function. While a healthy mucus layer protects the intestinal epithelium against infection and inflammation, using ex vivo mucus function analyses of viable colonic tissue explants, we show that microbiota from humans with a history of repeated antibiotic use causes reduced mucus growth rate and increased mucus penetrability compared to healthy controls in the transplanted mice. Moreover, shotgun metagenomic sequencing identified a significantly altered microbiota composition in the antibiotic-shaped microbial community, with known mucus-utilizing bacteria, including Akkermansia muciniphila and Bacteroides fragilis, dominating in the gut. The altered microbiota composition was further characterized by a distinct metabolite profile, which may be caused by differential mucus degradation capacity. Consequently, our proof-of-concept study suggests that long-term antibiotic use in humans can result in an altered microbial community that has reduced capacity to maintain proper mucus function in the gut.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2024. Vol. 16, no 1, article id 2377570
Keywords [en]
Akkermansia, Antibiotics, colonic mucosa, fecal microbiota transplantation, gut microbiome, intestinal barrier, mucus, short-chain fatty acids
National Category
Cell and Molecular Biology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-228198DOI: 10.1080/19490976.2024.2377570ISI: 001274077900001PubMedID: 39034613Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85199183175OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-228198DiVA, id: diva2:1886949
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2018-02095Swedish Research Council, 2021-06602EU, Horizon 2020, 810645European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), MOBEC0082024-08-052024-08-052024-08-05Bibliographically approved