Establishment and resilience of transplanted gut microbiota in aged mice

The maintenance of healthy and resilient gut microbiota is critical for the life quality and healthspan of the elderly. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been increasingly used to restore healthy gut microbiota. We systemically studied the establishment and resilience of transplanted microbiota after autologous versus heterologous FMT in aged recipients. Gut microbiota of aged mice (20 months old) failed to restore their original diversity and composition over 8 weeks via spontaneous recovery after antibiotics treatment; in contrast, FMT using either autologous or heterologous (2 months old from a different vendor) donors facilitated the recovery successfully, established donor-like microbiota states, and affected host gene expression profile. Furthermore, the transplanted microbiota established by heterologous FMT is not resilient during chemical-induced colonic inflammation, in contrast to that of autologous FMT. Our findings highlighted the need to monitor the long-term stability of transplanted gut microbiota and to perform multiple FMT when necessary.