The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice
The gut microbiota profoundly affects the biology of its host. The composition of the microbiota is dynamic and is affected by both host genetic and many environmental effects. The gut microbiota of laboratory mice has been studied extensively, which has uncovered many of the effects that the microb...
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| Format: | Online |
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Public Library of Science
2015
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530874/ |
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pubmed-45308742015-08-24 The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice Weldon, Laura Abolins, Stephen Lenzi, Luca Bourne, Christian Riley, Eleanor M. Viney, Mark Research Article The gut microbiota profoundly affects the biology of its host. The composition of the microbiota is dynamic and is affected by both host genetic and many environmental effects. The gut microbiota of laboratory mice has been studied extensively, which has uncovered many of the effects that the microbiota can have. This work has also shown that the environments of different research institutions can affect the mouse microbiota. There has been relatively limited study of the microbiota of wild mice, but this has shown that it typically differs from that of laboratory mice (and that maintaining wild caught mice in the laboratory can quite quickly alter the microbiota). There is also inter-individual variation in the microbiota of wild mice, with this principally explained by geographical location. In this study we have characterised the gut (both the caecum and rectum) microbiota of wild caught Mus musculus domesticus at three UK sites and have investigated how the microbiota varies depending on host location and host characteristics. We find that the microbiota of these mice are generally consistent with those described from other wild mice. The rectal and caecal microbiotas of individual mice are generally more similar to each other, than they are to the microbiota of other individuals. We found significant differences in the diversity of the microbiotas among mice from different sample sites. There were significant correlations of microbiota diversity and body weight, a measure of age, body-mass index, serum concentration of leptin, and virus, nematode and mite infection. Public Library of Science 2015-08-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4530874/ /pubmed/26258484 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134643 Text en © 2015 Weldon et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Weldon, Laura Abolins, Stephen Lenzi, Luca Bourne, Christian Riley, Eleanor M. Viney, Mark |
| spellingShingle |
Weldon, Laura Abolins, Stephen Lenzi, Luca Bourne, Christian Riley, Eleanor M. Viney, Mark The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice |
| author_facet |
Weldon, Laura Abolins, Stephen Lenzi, Luca Bourne, Christian Riley, Eleanor M. Viney, Mark |
| author_sort |
Weldon, Laura |
| title |
The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice |
| title_short |
The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice |
| title_full |
The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice |
| title_fullStr |
The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice |
| title_full_unstemmed |
The Gut Microbiota of Wild Mice |
| title_sort |
gut microbiota of wild mice |
| description |
The gut microbiota profoundly affects the biology of its host. The composition of the microbiota is dynamic and is affected by both host genetic and many environmental effects. The gut microbiota of laboratory mice has been studied extensively, which has uncovered many of the effects that the microbiota can have. This work has also shown that the environments of different research institutions can affect the mouse microbiota. There has been relatively limited study of the microbiota of wild mice, but this has shown that it typically differs from that of laboratory mice (and that maintaining wild caught mice in the laboratory can quite quickly alter the microbiota). There is also inter-individual variation in the microbiota of wild mice, with this principally explained by geographical location. In this study we have characterised the gut (both the caecum and rectum) microbiota of wild caught Mus musculus domesticus at three UK sites and have investigated how the microbiota varies depending on host location and host characteristics. We find that the microbiota of these mice are generally consistent with those described from other wild mice. The rectal and caecal microbiotas of individual mice are generally more similar to each other, than they are to the microbiota of other individuals. We found significant differences in the diversity of the microbiotas among mice from different sample sites. There were significant correlations of microbiota diversity and body weight, a measure of age, body-mass index, serum concentration of leptin, and virus, nematode and mite infection. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530874/ |
| _version_ |
1613257576720367616 |