Restoration of cefixime-induced gut microbiota changes by Lactobacillus cocktails and fructooligosaccharides in a mouse model

Probiotics have been used to rebuild the antibiotic-induced dysfunction in gut microbiota, but whether the different strains of probiotics result in similar or reverse effects remains unclear. In this study, the different recovery effects of two cocktails (each contains four strains) of Lactobacillus and fructooligosaccharide against cefixime-induced change of gut microbiota were evaluated in C57BL/6J mice. The results show that the use of cefixime caused a reduction in the diversities of the microbial community and led to significantly decreasing to one preponderant Firmicutes phylum, which was difficult to restore naturally in the short term. The gut microbiota compositions of the groups treated with the probiotic cocktails were much more diverse than those of the natural recovery group. The effects of Lactobacillus cocktails against the cefixime-induced gut microbiota change may mainly be due to the beneficial SCFAs production in vivo and also be related to the good cell adhesion properties performed in vitro. Meanwhile, the restoration of the cefixime-induced gut microbiota was significantly different between two Lactobacillus groups since the Lactobacillus strains with high levels of fructooligosaccharide use and better cell adhesion properties performed considerably better than the Lactobacillus strains with high survival rates in the gastrointestinal tract. The contents of short-chain fatty acids in ceca were increased to 26.483 ± 1.925 and 25.609 ± 2.782 μmol/g in the two probiotic cocktail groups respectively compared to 15.791 ± 0.833 μmol/g (P < 0.05) in control group. Moreover, intestinal inflammation was alleviated by administration of the Lactobacillus cocktails. However, fructooligasaccharide administration showed certain effects on gut microbiota restoration (such as an increase of Akkermansia), although its effect on the entire microbiome structure is not so obvious.