The impact of the postnatal gut microbiota on animal models

Axel Jacob Kornerup Hansen, Maria Ejsing-Duun, Bent Aasted, Jytte Josephsen, Gitte Bach Christensen, Kirsten Dahl, Finn Kvist Vogensen, Majbritt Ravn Hufeldt, Karsten Stig Buschard

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Quality control of laboratory animals has been mostly concentrated on eliminating and securing the absence of specific infections, but event barrier bred laboratory animals harbour a huge number of gut bacteria. There is scientific evidence that the nature of the gut microbiota especially in early life - has an impact on the maturation of the immune system and thereby on the development of inflammatory deseases. In several studies, the prevalence of diseases such as rheumatic arthititis (RA), allergies, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) an type 1 diabetes (T1D) has been shown to be positively correlated to factors related to early exposure to microorganisms, e.g. the so-called hygiene hypothesis claims that the increasing human incidence of allergy. T1D, RA and IBD may be due to the lack of such exposure. It is possible today by various molecular techniques to profile the gut microbiota of a laboratory animal, and such techniques should be applied to document uniform animals from laboratory animal vendors to secure standardization and thereby lower variation and smaller group sizes.
Original languageEnglish
JournalLaboratory Animals. Journal of the Laboratory Animal Science Association
Pages (from-to)95-99
Number of pages5
ISSN0023-6772
Publication statusPublished - 2007
EventFELASA Symposium and the XIV ICLAS General Assembly & Conference - Cernobbio, Italy
Duration: 11 Jun 200714 Jun 2007
Conference number: 10

Conference

ConferenceFELASA Symposium and the XIV ICLAS General Assembly & Conference
Number10
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityCernobbio
Period11/06/200714/06/2007

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