PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Marion Darnaud
AU  - Filipe De Vadder
AU  - Pascaline Bogeat
AU  - Lilia Boucinha
AU  - Anne-Laure Bulteau
AU  - Andrei Bunescu
AU  - Céline Couturier
AU  - Ana Delgado
AU  - Hélène Dugua
AU  - Céline Elie
AU  - Alban Mathieu
AU  - Tereza Novotná
AU  - Djomangan Adama Ouattara
AU  - Séverine Planel
AU  - Adrien Saliou
AU  - Dagmar Šrůtková
AU  - Jennifer Yansouni
AU  - Bärbel Stecher
AU  - Martin Schwarzer
AU  - François Leulier
AU  - Andrea Tamellini
TI  - A standardized gnotobiotic mouse model harboring a minimal 15-member mouse gut microbiota recapitulates SOPF/SPF phenotypes
AID  - 10.1101/2019.12.30.890954
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2019.12.30.890954
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/11/2019.12.30.890954.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/11/2019.12.30.890954.full
AB  - Mus musculus is the classic mammalian model for biomedical research. Despite global efforts to standardize breeding and experimental procedures, the undefined composition and interindividual diversity of the microbiota of laboratory mice remains a limitation. In an attempt to standardize the gut microbiome in preclinical mouse studies, we developed a simplified mouse microbiota composed of 15 strains from 7 of the 20 most prevalent bacterial families representative of the fecal microbiota of C57BL/6J Specific (and Opportunistic) Pathogen-Free (SPF/SOPF) animals and derived a new standardized gnotobiotic mouse model called GM15. GM15 recapitulates extensively the functionalities found in the C57BL/6J SOPF microbiota metagenome, and GM15 animals are phenotypically similar to SOPF or SPF animals in two different facilities. They are also less sensitive to the deleterious effects of post-weaning malnutrition. The GM15 model provides increased reproducibility and robustness of preclinical studies by limiting the confounding effect of fluctuation in microbiota composition, and offers new opportunities for research focused on how the microbiota shapes host physiology in health and disease.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.