Establishment of a microbial transplantation-induced dysbacteriosis model in rats with ischemic stroke

Abstract

ObjectiveTo establish a rat model of intestinal dysbacteriosis and provide methodological support for the study of intestinal dysbacteriosis after cerebral ischemia. MethodsTotally 19 male specific pathogen free (SPF) Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into a normal group (n = 5), a donor group (n = 9) and a recipient group (n = 5). The rats of donor group were subsequently assigned into 3 groups and middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) was performed in the rats on the first, second and third day after a 3-day adaptive feeding and cecal flora were taken as grafts 72 hours after the MCAO operation. After gavage administration of streptomycin sulfate for exhausting intestinal microbes, the rats of the recipient group were administered with the grafts by gavage once a day continually for three days. The cecal specimens of all the rats of the three groups were examined with gram staining microscopy. The contents of ileum, cecum and transverse colon of normal and recipient rats and cecum contents of donor rats were sampled for 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing and the microbial structure and characteristics of the contents were detected and analyzed with bioinformatics. ResultsCompared with that of the ileum, the species diversity of cecum and transverse colon flora in normal rats increased significantly (P 0.05 for all), but the flora structure of the rats of the two groups were similar. Conclusion Gavage administration of cecal flora 72 hours after MCAO operation could be used to establish a rat model of intestinal flora imbalance similar to the structure and characteristics of microorganisms of the rats with ischemic stroke.

Keywords

• ischemic stroke
• intestinal flora
• transplantation
• microbial property