Antibiotics Modulate Intestinal Regeneration

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The impact of the microbial community on host’s biological functions has uncovered the potential outcomes of antibiotics on host physiology, introducing the caveats of the antibiotic usage. Within animals, the digestive function is closely related to the microorganisms that inhabit this organ. The proper maintenance of the digestive system requires constant regeneration. These processes vary from self-renewal of some cells or tissues in some species to the complete regeneration of the organ in others. Whether antibiotics influence digestive organ regeneration remains unknown. We employ the sea cucumber, Holothuria glaberrima, for its capacity to regenerate the whole intestine after ejection from its internal cavity. We explored the antibiotics’ effects on several intestinal regeneration processes. In parallel, we studied the effect of antibiotics on the animals’ survival, toxicity, and gut bacteria growth. Our results show that tested antibiotics perturbed key cellular processes that occur during intestinal regeneration. Moreover, this happens at doses that inhibited bacteria growth but did not alter holothurian’s metabolic activity. We propose that antibiotics can perturb the cellular events of intestinal regeneration via their impact on the microbiota. These results highlight H. glaberrima as a promising model to study the importance of the microbiota during organ regeneration. ABSTRACT: The increased antibiotics usage in biomedical and agricultural settings has been well documented. Antibiotics have now been shown to exert effects outside their purposive use, including effects on physiological and developmental processes. We explored the effect of various antibiotics on intestinal regeneration in the sea cucumber Holothuria glaberrima. For this, holothurians were eviscerated and left to regenerate for 10 days in seawater with different penicillin/streptomycin-based cocktails (100 µg/mL PS) including: 100 µg/mL kanamycin (KPS), 5 µg/mL vancomycin (VPS), and 4 µg/mL (E4PS) or 20 µg/mL (E20PS) erythromycin. Immunohistological and histochemical analyses were performed to analyze regenerative processes, including rudiment size, extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling, cell proliferation, and muscle dedifferentiation. A reduction in muscle dedifferentiation was observed in all antibiotic-treated animals. ECM remodeling was decreased by VPS, E4PS, and E20PS treatments. In addition, organisms subjected to E20PS displayed a significant reduction in the size of their regenerating rudiments while VPS exposure altered cell proliferation. MTT assays were used to discard the possibility that the antibiotics directly affect holothurian metabolic activity while bacterial cultures were used to test antibiotic effects on holothurian enteric microbiota. Our results demonstrate a negative effect on intestinal regeneration and strongly suggest that these effects are due to alterations in the microbial community.