A21 ANTIBIOTICS SUPPRESS INTESTINAL ANTIVIRAL RESPONSES IN A MICROBIOTA-INDEPENDENT MANNER

摘要

BackgroundOral antibiotics are commonly administered to mice, and effects seen following these treatments are typically ascribed to the depletion of the intestinal microbiota; however, these effects may also be due to direct effects of the antibiotics on the host. In vitro studies have shown that various antibiotics can suppress many immune functions, but despite the frequent use of antibiotics in the clinic and research, potential microbiota-independent effects of antibiotics in vivo have been understudied.Here, we use murine norovirus strain CR6 (MNV-CR6) to investigate the effects of an oral antibiotic cocktail on intestinal immune responses. MNV-CR6 forms a persistent infection limited to the murine colon, a site containing high numbers of antibiotic-sensitive microbes which have been suggested to influence antiviral immunity. Importantly, while MNV-CR6 provokes an antiviral CD8⁺ T cell response, the magnitude of this response has no observed effect on the course of the infection, allowing us to study the effects of antibiotics on antiviral immunity without significantly influencing the underlying infection.