Composition of colonic microbes in mice deficient in intestinal Treg subsets

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are immune cells that play a crucial role in maintaining tolerance to harmless antigens, including commensal microbes. In the intestine, Tregs can be classified into subsets based on their expression of transcription factors Helios, Rorg, Gata3 and cMaf. The exact functions of the intestinal Treg subsets and their role in maintaining tolerance to intestinal microbes is not fully understood. Here, we generated conditional knockout mice of each Treg subset and profiled the composition of their intestinal microbiota by performing 16S rRNA sequencing of stool from conditional knockouts and matched littermate controls. Each condtional knockout strain and its paired control littermate (sex-matched) were selected from experimental batches of mice used for immune profiling spanning 3 years. Stool samples were collected from 6-8 week old mice.