Gastrointestinal microbiota and local inflammation during oxazolone-induced dermatitis in BALB/cA Mice

At present, laboratory animals are not standardized with regard to the gastrointestinal microbiota (GM), but differences in this feature may alter various parameters in animal models. We hypothesized that variation in the GM correlated with variation in clinical parameters of a murine oxazolone-induced skin inflammation model of atopic dermatitis. BALB/cA mice were sensitized with oxazolone over a 28-d period and variation in gastrointestinal microbiota in fecal and cecal samples was assessed by PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. Clinical parameters included transepidermal water loss, ear thickness, inflammatory factors in ear tissue and plasma, and histopathologic evaluation. The fecal microbiota before induction of skin inflammation strongly correlated with the levels of some proinflammatory cytokines (IFNγ, IL1β, IL12, and TNFα), the antiinflammatory cytokines IL4 and IL10, and the chemokine KC/GRO that were measured in ear samples at study termination. Cecal microbiota at termination correlated with ear thickness and transepidermal water loss. There was no correlation between cytokine responses and ear thickness or transepidermal water loss. In addition, GM changed during the study period in the oxazolone-treated mice, whereas this was not the case for the control mice. The current study shows that the GM of mice influences the development of oxazolone-induced skin inflammation and that the model itself likely induces a pathophysiologic response that alters the composition of the GM

Progressive Impairment of Lactate-based Gluconeogenesis in the Huntington's Disease Mouse Model R6/2

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative illness, where selective neuronal loss in the brain caused by expression of mutant huntingtin protein leads to motor dysfunction and cognitive decline in addition to peripheral metabolic changes. In this study we confirm our previous observation of impairment of lactate-based hepatic gluconeogenesis in the transgenic HD mouse model R6/2 and determine that the defect manifests very early and progresses in severity with disease development, indicating a potential to explore this defect in a biomarker context. Moreover, R6/2 animals displayed lower blood glucose levels during prolonged fasting compared to wild type animals