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The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice
Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for the development of physical and mental disorders accompanied or driven by an activated immune system. Given that chronic stress-induced systemic immune activation is lacking in germ-free and antibiotics-treated mice, a causal role of the gut microbiom...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6234875/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30464743 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00252 |
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author | Langgartner, Dominik Vaihinger, Carolyn A. Haffner-Luntzer, Melanie Kunze, Julia F. Weiss, Anna-Lena J. Foertsch, Sandra Bergdolt, Stephanie Ignatius, Anita Reber, Stefan O. |
author_facet | Langgartner, Dominik Vaihinger, Carolyn A. Haffner-Luntzer, Melanie Kunze, Julia F. Weiss, Anna-Lena J. Foertsch, Sandra Bergdolt, Stephanie Ignatius, Anita Reber, Stefan O. |
author_sort | Langgartner, Dominik |
collection | PubMed |
description | Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for the development of physical and mental disorders accompanied or driven by an activated immune system. Given that chronic stress-induced systemic immune activation is lacking in germ-free and antibiotics-treated mice, a causal role of the gut microbiome in the development of stress-related disorders is likely. To address this hypothesis in the current study we employed the chronic subordinate colony housing (CSC, 19 days) paradigm, a pre-clinically validated mouse model for chronic psychosocial stress, known to alter the gut microbial signature and to induce systemic low-grade inflammation, as well as physical and mental abnormalities. In detail, we investigated if (i) CSC-induced alterations can be prevented by repeated transplantation of feces (FT) from non-stressed single-housed control (SHC) mice during CSC exposure, and (ii) if the transplantation of a “stressed” CSC microbiome is able to induce CSC effects in SHC mice. Therefore, we repeatedly infused SHC and CSC recipient mice rectally with SHC donor feces at days 4 and 11 of the CSC paradigm and assessed anxiety-related behavior on day 19 as well as physiological, immunological, and bone parameters on day 20. Furthermore, SHC and CSC recipient mice were infused with CSC donor feces at respective days. To exclude effects of rectal infusions per se, another set of SHC and CSC mice was infused with saline, respectively. Our results showed that transplantation of SHC feces had mild stress-protective effects, indicated by an amelioration of CSC-induced thymus atrophy, anxiety, systemic low-grade inflammation, and alterations in bone homeostasis. Moreover, transplantation of CSC feces slightly aggravated CSC-induced systemic low-grade inflammation and alterations in bone homeostasis in SHC and/or CSC animals. In conclusion, our data provide evidence for a role of the host’s microbiome in many, but not all, adverse consequences of chronic psychosocial stress. Moreover, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that transplantation of healthy feces might be a useful tool to prevent/treat different adverse outcomes of chronic stress. Finally, our data suggests that stress effects can be transferred to a certain extend via FT, proposing therapeutic approaches using FT to carefully screen fecal donors for their stress/trauma history. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6234875 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-62348752018-11-21 The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice Langgartner, Dominik Vaihinger, Carolyn A. Haffner-Luntzer, Melanie Kunze, Julia F. Weiss, Anna-Lena J. Foertsch, Sandra Bergdolt, Stephanie Ignatius, Anita Reber, Stefan O. Front Behav Neurosci Neuroscience Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for the development of physical and mental disorders accompanied or driven by an activated immune system. Given that chronic stress-induced systemic immune activation is lacking in germ-free and antibiotics-treated mice, a causal role of the gut microbiome in the development of stress-related disorders is likely. To address this hypothesis in the current study we employed the chronic subordinate colony housing (CSC, 19 days) paradigm, a pre-clinically validated mouse model for chronic psychosocial stress, known to alter the gut microbial signature and to induce systemic low-grade inflammation, as well as physical and mental abnormalities. In detail, we investigated if (i) CSC-induced alterations can be prevented by repeated transplantation of feces (FT) from non-stressed single-housed control (SHC) mice during CSC exposure, and (ii) if the transplantation of a “stressed” CSC microbiome is able to induce CSC effects in SHC mice. Therefore, we repeatedly infused SHC and CSC recipient mice rectally with SHC donor feces at days 4 and 11 of the CSC paradigm and assessed anxiety-related behavior on day 19 as well as physiological, immunological, and bone parameters on day 20. Furthermore, SHC and CSC recipient mice were infused with CSC donor feces at respective days. To exclude effects of rectal infusions per se, another set of SHC and CSC mice was infused with saline, respectively. Our results showed that transplantation of SHC feces had mild stress-protective effects, indicated by an amelioration of CSC-induced thymus atrophy, anxiety, systemic low-grade inflammation, and alterations in bone homeostasis. Moreover, transplantation of CSC feces slightly aggravated CSC-induced systemic low-grade inflammation and alterations in bone homeostasis in SHC and/or CSC animals. In conclusion, our data provide evidence for a role of the host’s microbiome in many, but not all, adverse consequences of chronic psychosocial stress. Moreover, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that transplantation of healthy feces might be a useful tool to prevent/treat different adverse outcomes of chronic stress. Finally, our data suggests that stress effects can be transferred to a certain extend via FT, proposing therapeutic approaches using FT to carefully screen fecal donors for their stress/trauma history. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6234875/ /pubmed/30464743 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00252 Text en Copyright © 2018 Langgartner, Vaihinger, Haffner-Luntzer, Kunze, Weiss, Foertsch, Bergdolt, Ignatius and Reber. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neuroscience Langgartner, Dominik Vaihinger, Carolyn A. Haffner-Luntzer, Melanie Kunze, Julia F. Weiss, Anna-Lena J. Foertsch, Sandra Bergdolt, Stephanie Ignatius, Anita Reber, Stefan O. The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice |
title | The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice |
title_full | The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice |
title_fullStr | The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice |
title_full_unstemmed | The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice |
title_short | The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Chronic Psychosocial Stress-Induced Pathologies in Male Mice |
title_sort | role of the intestinal microbiome in chronic psychosocial stress-induced pathologies in male mice |
topic | Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6234875/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30464743 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00252 |
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