Figure 7. Altered microbiota composition in mice receiving CMC- and P80-treated M-SHIME suspensions.

A 9-vessel M-SHIME system was set up and inoculated with fresh human feces at day −7. Following a 7-day stabilization period, vessels were treated with either water, CMC 1% or P80 1% for 13 days. Germfree C57BL/6 mice (4 weeks old) were removed from isolator and were orally administered with 200μL of luminal M-SHIME suspension (day 11 sample). Transplanted mice were then housed in isolated ventilated cages. For each condition (water-treated M-SHIME, CMC-treated M-SHIME, P80-treated M-SHIME), 2 cages containing 2–3 animals were used, with each cage receiving suspension from an independent M-SHIME vessel (for each condition, N=2 vessel, N=2 cages, and N=5 animals). Fecal microbiota composition was analyzed using Illumina sequencing of the V4 region of 16S rRNA genes. (A) Microbiota composition was analyzed from GSU conventional mice, luminal M-SHIME suspension and germfree mice colonized with luminal M-SHIME suspension using Illumina sequencing of the V4 region of 16S rRNA genes. (B–C) Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) of the unweighted UniFrac distance matrix at days 13 (B) and 64 (C). Samples were colored by treatment (left side) or by cage (right side) (N=5). For clustering analyzing on principal coordinate plots, categories were compared and statistical significance of clustering were determined using the Permanova method.