Figure 4.

Five weeks of saccharin pre-feeding has a protective influence on chronic DSS-colitis in mice. (a) Drinking water of mice was supplemented with 0.1 mg/mL saccharin or left untreated for a period of five weeks, after which saccharin treatment was stopped and chronic colitis was induced in 3 cycles of 2% DSS-treatment via the drinking water. The blue arrow indicates the day of organ sampling. (b) Beta-diversity of fecal microbiome after five weeks of supplementation shown as unifrac-distance. Start: n = 48, ctrl and saccharin n = 24. (c) Water consumption during the first DSS-cycle of chronic colitis treatment of previously saccharin or untreated mice; n = 4 of two different experiments. Degree of intestinal inflammation is shown in (d) as DAI over time, in (e) as AUC of the DAI and in (f) as body weight loss over time. (d) and (f) n = 11–12 and (e) n = 9–10 from two independent experiments. (g) Denaturing, non-reducing WB of fecal proteins against IgA α-chain from DSS-ctrl or DSS-saccharin mice. Representative WB from two different experimental rounds. In (d) and (f) all mice were included until time of death while for (e) and (g) mice which were taken out at earlier time points due to abrogation criteria were excluded. Values are shown as mean ± SEM. * p ≤ 0.05; ** p ≤ 0.01; **** p ≤ 0.0001.