Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) patients display disruption of gut microbiome and gut dysbiosis exacerbate neurological impairment in SCI models. Cumulative data support an important role of gut microbiome in SCI. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) may exert a neuroprotective effect on SCI mice.
Results: We found that FMT facilitated functional recovery, promoted neural axonal regeneration, improved animal weight gain and metabolic profiling, and enhanced intestinal barrier integrity and GI motility. High-throughput sequencing revealed that levels of phylum Firmicutes, genus Blautia, Anaerostipes and Lactobacillus were reduced in fecal samples of SCI mice, and FMT remarkably reshaped gut microbiome. Also, FMT-treated SCI mice showed increased amount of fecal short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which correlated with alteration of intestinal permeability and locomotor recovery. Furthermore, FMT down-regulated IL-1β/NF-κB signaling in spinal cord and NF-κB signaling in gut.
Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that reprogramming of gut microbiota by FMT improves locomotor and GI functions in SCI mice, possibly through the anti-inflammatory functions of SCFAs.