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Gnotobiology

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The Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease

Abstract

In this chapter we provide a brief overview on the historical development of gnotobiology, housing, and maintenance systems as well as procedures used today in the gnotobiotic facility/laboratory. The techniques and equipment that prompted the development of the gnotobiology field were developed more than half a century ago. However, the main principles of gnotobiotic work have remained unchanged over the years. The pioneers of gnotobiology were Nuttall and Thierfelder, who have rederived the first germ-free animals. However, groundbreaking advancements in the gnotobiology field were achieved in the mid-1900s by scientists gathered around Reyniers and Trexler at the LOBUND Institute. Since its beginning the main goals of gnotobiotic husbandry were to provide a nucleus of pathogen-free animals for the biomedical research and to elucidate the impact of microorganisms on their host health and physiology. However, to achieve these goals, the obstacles for long-term maintenance of germ-free animals needed to be overcome. The development of gnotobiotic equipment and prerequisites for long-term maintenance accompanied with methodological progress, creation of various mouse models and sequencing platforms, contributed to the rise of gnotobiotic research in the last decade. Today, gnotobiology represents a powerful platform for unraveling the mechanisms underlying the complex nature of host-microbiota interactions and probe the function of individual microbes in health and disease. Germ-free mice can be utilized to unravel the functionality of individual murine or human bacterial species, microbial consortia, or human fecal transplants in health and disease, under highly defined conditions. Thereby, gnotobiology can reveal crucial genetic, microbial, and environmental determinants underlying host-microbiota interactions.

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  1. Institute for Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

    Marijana Basic & André Bleich

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  1. Marijana Basic
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  2. André Bleich
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Correspondence to André Bleich .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Nutrition and Immunology, Technical University Munich, Freising, Germany

    Dirk Haller

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Basic, M., Bleich, A. (2018). Gnotobiology. In: Haller, D. (eds) The Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90545-7_21

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