NOD2 signaling in antigen presenting cells during oral vaccination is critical for eliciting a humoral immune response and maintaining the gut microbiome

This study utilized Cre-Lox recombination to selectively disrupt NOD2 signaling in CD11c-expressing cells to investigate the essential function of NOD2 in DCs, upon vaccination with rLaOVA, a construct expressing the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II epitope from chicken egg ovalbumin (peptide 323-339). The influence of NOD2 expression and activation in CD11c+ cells on the composition of the intestinal microbiome community was studied via 16S sequencing. Our results demonstrate that CD11c-NOD2 signaling primarily impacts the beta diversity of the intestinal microbiome. Importantly, several key taxa are responsible for driving the differences in microbiome composition between experimental groups based on Random Forest analysis.