A comparative analysis of the effect of antibiotic treatment and enteric infection on intestinal homeostasis

The intestinal metabolome is a rich collection of molecules with specialized functions and important physiological effects. Many insults such as enteric infection and microbiota disruption by antibiotics can have profound effects in the metabolic homeostasis of the gut. We have recently shown that Salmonella infection and antibiotic treatment of mice drastically alter the intestinal metabolome. Particularly, host hormone metabolism was significantly altered by both insults. Infection resulted in a net increase in the production of both steroids and eicosanoids, whereas antibiotic treatment seemed to reduce the production of these hormones. Our results suggest that both intestinal pathogens and commensals affect common metabolic functions and that this phenomenon may have implications for the interactions between microbes and their hosts.