Sensitivity to oxazolone induced dermatitis is transferable with gut microbiota in mice

Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 14:7:44385. doi: 10.1038/srep44385.

Abstract

Atopic Dermatitis (AD) has been associated with gut microbiota (GM) dysbiosis in humans, indicating a causative role of GM in AD etiology. Furthermore, the GM strongly correlates to essential disease parameters in the well-known oxazolone-induced mouse model of AD. Here, we demonstrate that it is possible to transfer both a high-responding and a low-responding AD phenotype with GM from conventional mice to germ-free mice. The mice inoculated with the high-responding GM had significantly higher clinical score, increased ear thickness, and increased levels of IL-1β, TNFα, IL-4, IL-5, and IL-6 compared to the mice inoculated with the low-responding GM. The inter-individual variation was in general not affected by this increase in effect size. Germ-free mice induced with AD revealed a high disease response as well as high inter-individual variation indicating protective properties of certain microbial taxa in this model. This study underlines that the GM has a strong impact on AD in mouse models, and that the power of studies may be increased by the application of mice inoculated with a specific GM from high responders to increase the effect size.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cytokines / metabolism*
  • Dermatitis, Atopic / chemically induced
  • Dermatitis, Atopic / metabolism
  • Dermatitis, Atopic / microbiology*
  • Dermatitis, Atopic / pathology
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Dysbiosis / microbiology*
  • Dysbiosis / pathology
  • Gastrointestinal Microbiome / genetics*
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • Oxazolone / toxicity
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / metabolism

Substances

  • Cytokines
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
  • Oxazolone