Figure 7.

Spontaneous gut microbiota reconstitution in the onset of TAC results in systolic function comparable to WT TAC, and rescues the decreased expression of AhR in the LV and intestine in response to TAC. (a), Experimental design for gut microbiota spontaneous reconstitution after ABX treatment. (b), 16S rRNA expression measured by qPCR at the indicated times post TAC and ABX removal. Principal component analysis (PCA) clustering of gut microbial populations generated after 16S rRNA sequencing of fecal pellets (c) and relative abundance of main phyla (d) of TAC and TAC-REC mice at 4 weeks post-surgery. (e),(f), estimated microbial alpha diversity indexes (Simpson and Shannon indexes) in TAC mice and TAC REC mice. Ejection fraction (g) and fractional shortening (h) were measured by echocardiography. Ahr gene expression was measured by qPCR in the LV (i) and intestine (j). Each point represents one mouse. ANOVA test was used to assess the data. In addition, 2 way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple comparison test were used for C and D. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. wk: week