Recovery of the fecal microbiota over time in clindamycin treated animals.

<p>Microbiota analysis was performed in conjunction with 1 of the 2 colonization resistance experiments. Mice received subcutaneous clindamycin (n = 6) or normal saline (n = 3) for 3 days. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to measure fecal bacterial DNA in fecal specimens collected either before treatment or 1, 5, 8, 12, or 21 days following treatment. The y-axis shows the quantity of amplified DNA detected per 1 ng of template DNA. The bacterial families with mouse fecal microbiota showed 4 distinct response patterns following clindamycin exposure: (A) decrease followed by a rapid normalization, (B) increase with slow normalization, (C) sustained decrease and (D) no difference compared to controls. Red circles, mean values for clindamycin-treated mice. Black squares, mean values for control mice. * <i>p</i><0.05 and ** <i>p</i><0.001. Symbols adjacent to the line indicate statistically significant differences between consecutive time points. Symbols adjacent to circles indicate statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups for that individual time point. Symbols after the terminal point of the lines on a graph indicate statistically significant differences between experimental and control groups independent of individual time points. Error bars represent standard error.