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In a new study published in Nature Communications, scientists reported low-dose penicillin in early life induces long-term changes in gut microbiota, brain cytokines and behaviour in mice.
Prof. Julian Marchesi, Deputy Director and Professor of Clinical Microbiome Research, the Centre for Digestive and Gut Health, Imperial College London, said:
“This is a very interesting study from a group who are recognised world leaders in the area of the gut brain axis. The use of a non-specific antibiotic, i.e. one that will kill bacteria in multiple sites in the body has been shown before to have a dramatic impact not only on the types and quantities of the metabolites/chemicals that the microbes make, but also those made by the body in response to the microbes that are altered. So it comes as no surprise to me that using antibiotics during pregnancy has an impact not only on the mother, but her pups too. This change would be like randomly chopping out part of your own genome and wondering why you and your offspring don’t function properly. In this scenario we have to think of the microbes that live in and on us as extensions to our genomes and antibiotics can alter or remove it, thus affecting how we function.
“However, while the study shows that antibiotics, in low-doses can affect the mother and offspring’s physiology, immunology and behaviour, this can be ameliorated using, in this case a single strain of probiotic. So for this area of research the next things to ask are, why is this happening?, what does the low-dose of antibiotic do to the bacteria such that this results in a change in behaviour, immunology and physiology, i.e. what is the mechanism?, why does one strain of probiotic seem to help reverse the effect?, and does this translate to humans? The last point is critical, since many studies on the gut microbes-brain axis have been in rodents, and we need to know is this true for humans too.”
Prof. Bob Rastall, Professor of Food Biotechnology, University of Reading, said:
“The study shows an impact of antibiotics on the gut microbiota of mice. This in itself is not surprising – we have known for some years that antibiotics induce severe compromise in the gut microbiota of humans. Recent studies have shown that there is some kind of link between the state of the gut ecosystem and effects in the brain. Although the detailed mechanisms of this are elusive at the present time, they are probably related to metabolites from the gut having a systemic effect.
“A probiotic such as a Lactobacillus will produce acetate among other metabolites, partly rebuilding the healthy gut microbiota. This could conceivably mediate the gut-brain interaction. It would have been interesting to see the effect of prebiotics in this system as they can have much more widespread effects on the ecology of the gut than a single probiotic.”
* ‘Low-dose penicillin in early life induces long-term changes in murine gut microbiota, brain cytokines and behavior’ by Leclercq et al. will be published in Nature Communications on Tuesday 4 April.
Declared interests
Prof. Julian Marchesi: No conflicts of interest.
Prof. Bob Rastall: No conflicts of interest.