Short Chain Fatty Acid Independent Hepatic Histone Acetylation Patterns, Induced by Microbiota Exposure, are Irreversible

Germ-free mice are an indispensable tool in studying the gut microbiome and its effects on host physiology, though they are phenotypically different than their conventional counterparts. While antibiotic mediated microbiota depletion in conventional mice mimics the germ-free state, the scope of these reversible changes is unknown. We demonstrate robust hepatic transcriptomic alterations after antibiotic-mediated microbiota depletion together with depletion of luminal and portal vein levels of SCFAs though hepatic histone acetylation states remained largely unchanged. Overall design: Liver RNA from mice treated with non-absorbable antibiotics to deplete gut microbiota were was analyzed by RNAseq (N=4-5/group). To assess the differential gene expression between conventional and microbiota depleted mice, we performed RNAseq.