The gut microbiota regulates the depressive-type behaviors and inflammatory processes after severe burn injuries in mice

Ling Chen; Langlang Xie; Jing Tan; Ning Li; Yue Luo; Maojun Li; Shi Zhang; Zonghua Wang

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25617

The gut microbiota regulates the depressive-type behaviors and inflammatory processes after severe burn injuries in mice

Heliyon. 2024 Feb 10;10(4):e25617. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25617. eCollection 2024 Feb 29.

Authors

Ling Chen^{1

2}, Langlang Xie^{1

2}, Jing Tan³, Ning Li⁴, Yue Luo⁴, Maojun Li⁴, Shi Zhang², Zonghua Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Nursing, School of Nursing, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China.
² Department of Emergency, The 958th Hospital of PLA, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China.
³ Department of Nursing Management, School of Nursing, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Institute of Burn Research, The First Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University, Chongqing, China.

Abstract

An emerging number of studies have recently revealed the correlation between burn injuries and psychological disorders. Gut microbiota and inflammatory factors may play a vital role in this process. Nevertheless, there are few studies conducted to disclose the potential mechanism of the gut microbiota between depression and burn injuries. In this study, we constructed a burn model of C57BL/6 mice, which showed that the symptom of depression became more and more severe with the burn of mice lasted longer. Meanwhile, there are significant differences of composition of gut microbiota among mice before and after burn. Then, we tested the inflammatory factors in the brain and peripheral blood, which showed an increased expression of Iba1, VWF, TNF-α and IL-6, and a decreased expression of IL-10 in burn mice. In addition, the expression of zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) in cecum showed a down-regulation in burn mice, which indicated impaired intestinal barrier function. Lastly, the crossing fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and cohousing experiment were conducted to determine the functions of cross-transplantation of fecal microbiota on the depressive-type behaviours in burned mice. According to the score of Tail suspension test (TST), the burn mice were divided into two groups: Resilient mice (no-depressed mice) and Abnormal mice (depressed mice). After abnormal mice were transplanted with fecal microbiota of resilient mice, the symptom of depression was improved, and the expression of TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-10 return to normal levels (P < 0.05). On the contrary, after resilient mice were transplanted with fecal microbiota of abnormal mice both the TST scores and inflammatory factor developed depressive-type changes. In conclusion, our study demonstrated the changes of gut microbiota and inflammatory factors in depressed burn mice and non-depressed burn mice. The gut microbiota dysbiosis could impaired intestinal barrier function and lead to neuroinflammation, and this phenomenon could be significantly mitigated by FMT.

Keywords: Burn injuries; Depressive-type behaviors; Gut microbiota; Inflammatory factors.