Lab Animal Microbiome Collection

In this perspective, the authors discuss the use of Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system to study host–microbe interactions, highlighting innovative methodologies and key findings from recent studies.

This Review discusses the strengths of the zebrafish model for microbiome research, and highlights important insights gleaned from observational and manipulative microbiome studies in zebrafish.

Treatment for bacterial sepsis remains limited beyond the use of antibiotics. Lingye Chen, Karen Welty-Wolf, and Bryan Kraft review nonhuman primate models of sepsis and highlight their advantages and limitations compared to other preclinical models.

In this article, Dr. Nancy Moran and coworkers present the use of honey bees as models for gastrointestinal research. They compare and contrast the honey bee with humans and other insects in order to present a balanced perspective of the model.

Kymberleigh Romano and Federico Rey discuss the importance of the microbiome/choline interaction for in utero development.

Angela Douglas reviews the use of Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism in microbiome studies.

As metagenomics advances, virus hunters are finding novel infections in colonies of laboratory mice across the world. What that means for scientific research and the animals themselves can depend on the mouse.

The microbiome many consist of small microorganisms, but it can make a big impact on experimental results. Although its exact role is still being teased apart, there are ways researchers can be mindful of the microbial variable in their mouse studies.

With the genetics of a laboratory strain but a more diverse microbiome, ‘wildling’ mice could be a novel complement to commonly used specific pathogen-free animals in preclinical studies.

The mammalian gut microbiota confers colonization resistance against pathogenic bacteria. Specific pathogen-free C57BL/6 mice from different vendors are variably resistant to oral non-typhoidal Salmonella infection. New work shows that differences in endogenous Enterobacteriaceae determine this phenotypic variability.