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Effect of the Nursing Mother on the Gut Microbiome of the Offspring During Early Mouse Development

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Abstract

The development of the gut microbiome is influenced by several factors. It is acquired during and after birth and involves both maternal and environmental factors as well as the genetic disposition of the offspring. However, it is unclear if the microbiome development is directly triggered by the mode of delivery and very early contact with the mother or mostly at later stages of initial development mainly by breast milk provided by the mother. To investigate to what extent the gut microbiome composition of the offspring is determined by the nursing mother, providing breast milk, compared to the birth mother during early development, a cross-fostering experiment involving two genetically different mouse lines was developed, being prone to be obese or lean, respectively. The microbiome of the colon was analyzed by high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing, when the mice were 3 weeks old. The nursing mother affected both α- and β-diversity of the offspring’s gut microbiome and shaped its composition. Especially bacterial families directly transferred by breast milk, like Streptococcaceae, or families which are strongly influenced by the quality of the breast milk like Rikenellaceae, showed a strong response. The core microbiome transferred from the obese nursing mother showed a higher robustness in comparison to the microbiome transferred from the lean nursing mother. Overall, the nursing mother impacts the gut microbial composition of the offspring during early development and might play an important role for health and disease of the animals at later stages of life.

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Abbreviations

OTU:

operational taxonomic unit

leanNM:

lean nursing mother

obeseNM:

obese nursing mother

leanBM:

lean birth mother

obeseBM:

obese birth mother

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Susanne Kublik (Helmholtz Zentrum München) for technically supporting this work. Simon Horvat (University of Ljubljana) is acknowledged for donation of lean and fat mouse lines.

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Author notes

  1. Gisle Vestergaard

    Present address: Molecular Microbial Ecology Group, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

  2. Anne Schöler

    Present address: DKFZ German Cancer Research Center, Berlin, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit Comparative Microbiome Analysis, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany

    Nicole Simone Treichel, Matea Kostrić, Gisle Vestergaard, Bärbel Foesel, Stefan Pfeiffer, Anne Schöler & Michael Schloter

  2. Department of Animal Science, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Zala Prevoršek, Vesna Mrak & Blaž Stres

  3. ZIEL - Institute for Food & Health, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany

    Stefan Pfeiffer & Michael Schloter

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Contributions

ZP, BS, VM, AS, and MS designed the study. NST performed lab work and sequencing. GV and MK established the bioinformatics pipeline based on the open-source software package QIIME and helped with analysis. NST and AS generated and analyzed the sequence data. NST, MS, SP, BF, and AS conceptualized and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to revisions and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bärbel Foesel.

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All applicable national guidelines for the care and use of animals, which are all in compliance with the EU regulations, were followed.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Treichel, N.S., Prevoršek, Z., Mrak, V. et al. Effect of the Nursing Mother on the Gut Microbiome of the Offspring During Early Mouse Development. Microb Ecol 78, 517–527 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-019-01317-7

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