Mouse vendor influence on the bacterial and viral gut composition exceeds the effect of diet

Torben Sølbeck Rasmussen*, Liv de Vries, Witold Kot, Lars Hestbjerg Hansen, Josué L. Castro-Mejía, Finn Kvist Vogensen, Axel Kornerup Hansen, Dennis Sandris Nielsen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

54 Citations (Scopus)
145 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Often physiological studies using mice from one vendor show different outcome when being reproduced using mice from another vendor. These divergent phenotypes between similar mouse strains from different vendors have been assigned to differences in the gut microbiome. During recent years, evidence has mounted that the gut viral community plays a key role in shaping the gut microbiome and may thus also influence mouse phenotype. However, to date inter-vendor variation in the murine gut virome has not been studied. Using a metavirome approach, combined with 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we here compare the composition of the viral and bacterial gut community of C57BL/6N mice from three different vendors exposed to either a chow-based low-fat diet or high-fat diet. Interestingly, both the bacterial and the viral component of the gut community differed significantly between vendors. The different diets also strongly influenced both the viral and bacterial gut community, but surprisingly the effect of vendor exceeded the effect of diet. In conclusion, the vendor effect is substantial not only on the gut bacterial community but also strongly influences viral community composition. Given the effect of GM on mice phenotype, this is essential to consider for increasing reproducibility of mouse studies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number435
JournalViruses
Volume11
Issue number5
Number of pages15
ISSN1999-4915
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Animal model reproducibility
  • Bacteriophages
  • Gut microbiota
  • Vendor effect
  • Virome

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