Gut microbiota has a crucial role in the maintenance of health. Increasing evidence suggests that changes or disturbances in gut microbiota may be associated with various diseases. Therefore, preclinical and clinical studies related to gut microbiota are becoming increasingly important. Germ-free animal experimentation is one of the most important in vivo experimental models for preclinical studies on gut microbiota interactions. It represents a model to study effect of probiotic research and other experimental animal studies requiring careful control of outside contaminants that can affect the trial. Germ-free animals have defected immune systems, so they are used to model immune mediated metabolic, peripheral, and central diseases. In addition, gut–brain axis studies have recently increased. This minireview provides current information on this model and discusses the validity of its use in gut microbiota studies.

肠道菌群在维持健康中起着至关重要的作用。越来越多的证据表明，肠道菌群的变化或紊乱可能与各种疾病有关。因此，与肠道菌群有关的临床前和临床研究变得越来越重要。无胚动物实验是体内最重要的实验之一用于肠道菌群相互作用的临床前研究的实验模型。它代表了研究益生菌研究和其他需要仔细控制可能影响试验的外部污染物的实验动物研究效果的模型。无胚动物的免疫系统有缺陷，因此可用于模拟免疫介导的代谢，外周和中枢性疾病。此外，最近对肠脑轴的研究也有所增加。这份小型综述提供了有关该模型的最新信息，并讨论了其在肠道菌群研究中的有效性。