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Updated: Feb 4, 2026

A Method to Define the Effects of Environmental Enrichment on Colon Microbiome Biodiversity in a Mouse Colon Tumor Model
Published on: February 28, 2018
Intestinal microbiome adjusts the innate immune setpoint during colonization through negative regulation of MyD88
Bjørn E V Koch1,2, Shuxin Yang1,3, Gerda Lamers1
1Institute of Biology, Leiden University, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Host pathways mediating changes in immune states elicited by intestinal microbial colonization are incompletely characterized. Here we describe alterations of the host immune state induced by colonization of germ-free zebrafish larvae with an intestinal microbial community or single bacterial species. We show that microbiota-induced changes in intestinal leukocyte subsets and whole-body host gene expression are dependent on the innate immune adaptor gene myd88. Similar patterns of gene expression are elicited by colonization with conventional microbiome, as well as mono-colonization with two different zebrafish commensal bacterial strains. By studying loss-of-function myd88 mutants, we find that colonization suppresses Myd88 at the mRNA level. Tlr2 is essential for microbiota-induced effects on myd88 transcription and intestinal immune cell composition.
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