The mammalian gut microbiota is a complex community of microorganisms which typically exhibits remarkable stability. As the gut microbiota has been shown to affect many aspects of host health, the molecular keys to developing and maintaining a “healthy” gut microbiota are highly sought after. Yet, the qualities that define a microbiota as healthy remain elusive. We used the ability to resist change in response to antibiotic disruption, a quality we refer to as ecological resistance, as a metric for the health of the bacterial microbiota. Using a mouse model, we found that colonization with the commensal fungus Candida albicans decreased the ecological resistance of the bacterial microbiota in response to the antibiotic clindamycin such that increased microbiota disruption was observed in C. albicans-colonized mice compared to that in uncolonized mice. C. albicans colonization resulted in decreased alpha diversity and small changes in abundance of bacterial genera prior to clindamycin challenge. Strikingly, co-occurrence network analysis demonstrated that C. albicans colonization resulted in sweeping changes to the co-occurrence network structure, including decreased modularity and centrality and increased density. Thus, C. albicans colonization resulted in changes to the bacterial microbiota community and reduced its ecological resistance.

中文翻译：

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白色念珠菌定植的小鼠肠道微生物群对克林霉素挑战的生态抵抗力降低


哺乳动物肠道微生物群是一个复杂的微生物群落，通常表现出显着的稳定性。由于肠道微生物群已被证明会影响宿主健康的许多方面，因此开发和维持“健康”肠道微生物群的分子关键受到高度追捧。然而，定义微生物群健康的品质仍然难以捉摸。我们利用抵抗抗生素破坏而发生变化的能力（我们将这种能力称为生态抵抗力）作为细菌微生物群健康状况的衡量标准。使用小鼠模型，我们发现共生真菌白色念珠菌的定植降低了细菌微生物群对抗生素克林霉素的生态抗性，从而与未定植的小鼠相比，在白色念珠菌定植的小鼠中观察到微生物群破坏增加。在克林霉素攻击之前，白色念珠菌的定殖导致α多样性降低和细菌属丰度发生微小变化。引人注目的是，共现网络分析表明，白色念珠菌的定植导致了共现网络结构的彻底变化，包括模块性和中心性的降低以及密度的增加。因此，白色念珠菌的定殖导致细菌微生物群落的变化并降低其生态抵抗力。