Cited by 94Gut microbiota and healthAnimal Nutrition and PhysiologyInfluenza Virus Research Studies

Impact of age, caloric restriction, and influenza infection on mouse gut microbiome: an exploratory study of the role of age-related microbiome changes on influenza responses

Open access
Bartley, Jenna M., Zhou, Xin, Kuchel, George A., Weinstock, George M., Haynes, Laura·2017·Frontiers in Immunology

Abstract

Immunosenescence refers to age-related declines in the capacity to respond to infections such as influenza (flu). Caloric restriction represents a known strategy to slow many aging processes, including those involving the immune system. More recently, some changes in the microbiome have been described with aging, while the gut microbiome appears to influence responses to flu vaccination and infection. With these considerations in mind, we used a well-established mouse model of flu infection to explore the impact of flu infection, aging, and caloric restriction on the gut microbiome. Young, middle-aged, and aged caloric restricted (CR) and ad lib fed (AL) mice were examined after a sublethal flu infection. All mice lost 10-20% body weight and, as expected for these early time points, losses were similar at different ages and between diet groups. Cytokine and chemokine levels were also similar with the notable exception of IL-1α, which rose more than fivefold in aged AL mouse serum, while it remained unchanged in aged CR serum. Fecal microbiome phyla abundance profiles were similar in young, middle-aged, and aged AL mice at baseline and at 4 days post flu infection, while increases in Proteobacteria were evident at 7 days post flu infection in all three age groups. CR mice, compared to AL mice in each age group, had increased abundance of Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia at all time points. Interestingly, principal coordinate analysis determined that diet exerts a greater effect on the microbiome than age or flu infection. Percentage body weight loss correlated with the relative abundance of Proteobacteria regardless of age, suggesting flu pathogenicity is related to Proteobacteria abundance. Further, several microbial Operational Taxonomic Units from the Bacteroidetes phyla correlated with serum chemokine/cytokines regardless of both diet and age suggesting an interplay between flu-induced systemic inflammation and gut microbiota. These exploratory studies highlight the impact of caloric restriction on fecal microbiome in both young and aged animals, as well as the many complex relationships between flu responses and gut microbiota. Thus, these preliminary studies provide the necessary groundwork to examine how gut microbiota alterations may be leveraged to influence declining immune responses with aging.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01164

Cites

101 of 101 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Using animal models of pulmonary infections by influenza and RSV, multiple groups have shown that the gut microbiome is clearly impacted by respiratory viral infections, despite the lack of detectable respiratory virus in the gut.

    “Using animal models of pulmonary infections by influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), multiple groups have shown that the gut microbiome is clearly impacted by respiratory viral infections, despite the lack of detectable respiratory virus in the gut”
  • Caloric restriction also results in increased relative abundance of Proteobacteria and increased Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes ratio, raising the possibility that decreased oral intake during influenza may contribute to changes in the microbiome.

    “caloric restriction also results in increased relative abundance of Proteobacteria and increased Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes ratio, raising the possibility that decreased oral intake during influenza may contribute to changes in the microbiome”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 103 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Bartley, J. M., Zhou, X., Kuchel, G. A., Weinstock, G. M., & Haynes, L.
Affiliations
  • University of Connecticut (US)
  • The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine (US)
Corresponding author
Haynes, Laura
Venue
Frontiers in Immunology
Published
2017-09-20
Volume
8
Pages
1164-1164
ISSN
1664-3224 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2754773222
Cited by
87
References
103
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 6
FWCI
3.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Immunology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • The Mouseion at the JAXlibrary (Jackson Laboratory) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health (AG021600)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Animal Nutrition and Physiology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Influenza Virus Research Studies
Keywords
gut microbiota, caloric restriction, influenza, immunosenescence, aging, Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Bacteroidetes, cytokines, chemokines, systemic inflammation, weight loss, diet effects on microbiota, mouse model

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review