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Study of murine faecal microflora by cellular fatty acid analysis; effect of age and mouse strain
J Vaahtovuo1, P Toivanen, E Eerola
1Department of Medical Microbiology, Turku Immunology Centre, Turku University, Finland.
Abstract:
Analysis of bacteria-derived cellular fatty acids was applied to study differences in faecal floras of inbred mice. The bacterial composition of the faecal flora clearly changes with age, whereas the sex does not affect it. Most interestingly, different mouse strains were found to have different faecal floras. This was particularly observed at the age of 17-19 weeks for stool samples of four different mouse strains; the mice were handled identically in identical environments, and the two congenic strains used were different from each other only by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). These results suggest that composition of the faecal flora is genetically regulated.