Effects of sow antibiotic treatment and offspring diet on microbiota and gut barrier throughout life

Neonatal microbial colonization of the gut participates in anatomical and functional development of thisorgan. Perinatal use of antibiotics (AB) is suspected to contribute to later development of diet-related diseasesin human, through early alterations in microbial colonization impacting gut and distant-organ function.In that respect, gut barrier function, including permeability, detoxification, immune and cytoprotectionsystems are important aspects. AB treatment around farrowing also happens in pig production. However,the consequences on gut barrier throughout life in offspring are unknown. During the Interplay EU project,we developed a pig model of AB-induced early microbiota disturbances for investigating short- and longertermconsequences on offspring gut barrier function. Sows were given orally a broad spectrum AB aroundfarrowing (day -10 to +21). Offspring were sacrificed during suckling, after weaning and at 6 months ofage. In the long-term protocol, offspring were fed a high fat (vs. low fat) diet for 4 weeks as a model ofdiet-induced low grade inflammation. AB treatment of sows affected their faecal microbiota and that oftheir offspring. We observed age-dependent alterations in offspring ileal and colonic permeability, ilealepithelial transcriptome, mucosal inflammation traits, digestive enzymes, ileal and colonic protective heatshock proteins and in digesta concentrations of pro-inflammatory bacterial components. Interactions betweenperinatal antibiotic treatment of mothers and offspring adult diet was often significant for gut parameters.Data indicate that both early gut microbial colonization disturbances and late nutritional environmentcondition gut function in adulthood according to specific spatio-temporal patterns. Underlying molecularmechanisms and correlations between physiological and microbial traits are under investigation