Cecal Microbiota of male IL-10 knockout mice fed control or high fat diet with and without wheat germ. Mus musculus

Interleukin-10 knockout mice of C57BL/6J background were originally obtained from Jackson Laboratory. At six-weeks of age, mice were randomly assigned to one of three dietary treatments, with a n of at least 6 mice/group. That is, KO + control diet (KO+CD), KO + High-fat diet (KO+WD), KO + High-fat diet + 10%(w/w) Wheat germ (KO+WD+WG). Treatment was maintained for 4 weeks, during which records of body weight and food intake were monitored. At the end of the study, mice were fasted for 3 hours, anaesthetized with ketamine/xylazine cocktail, bled from their carotid artery, and tissues were harvested. Each cecum was excised, flushed into individual tubes using ice cold sterile PBS, tubes were centrifuged, supernatant was discarded and the precipitate were weighed and stored at -80oC for 16S based microbiota profiling.