Transgenerational effects of early life stress on the fecal microbiota in mice

Stress in early life can affect the progeny and increase the risk to develop psychiatric and cardiometabolic diseases across generations. The cross-generational effects of early life stress have been modeled in mice and demonstrated to be associated with epigenetic factors in the germline. While str...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Communications biology 2024-05, Vol.7 (1), p.670-12, Article 670
Main Authors: Otaru, Nize, Kourouma, Lola, Pugin, Benoit, Constancias, Florentin, Braegger, Christian, Mansuy, Isabelle M., Lacroix, Christophe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
45/23
45/77
631/326/2565/2134
631/378/1831
64/60
692/698/2741/2135
Animals
Bacteria - classification
Bacteria - genetics
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Epigenetics
Fecal microflora
Feces
Feces - microbiology
Female
Gastrointestinal Microbiome
Genetic crosses
Life Sciences
Male
Mice
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Microbiomes
Microbiota
Offspring
Stress, Psychological - microbiology
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Summary:Stress in early life can affect the progeny and increase the risk to develop psychiatric and cardiometabolic diseases across generations. The cross-generational effects of early life stress have been modeled in mice and demonstrated to be associated with epigenetic factors in the germline. While stress is known to affect gut microbial features, whether its effects can persist across life and be passed to the progeny is not well defined. Here we show that early postnatal stress in mice shifts the fecal microbial composition (binary Jaccard index) throughout life, including abundance of eight amplicon sequencing variants (ASVs). Further effects on fecal microbial composition, structure (weighted Jaccard index), and abundance of 16 ASVs are detected in the progeny across two generations. These effects are not accompanied by changes in bacterial metabolites in any generation. These results suggest that changes in the fecal microbial community induced by early life traumatic stress can be perpetuated from exposed parent to the offspring. A study on early life traumatic stress in mice suggest that changes in the fecal microbial community induced by early life stress can be perpetuated from exposed parent to the offspring across two generations.
ISSN:2399-3642
2399-3642
DOI:10.1038/s42003-024-06279-2