The reduction in gut microbiota diversity is associated with a range of human diseases. Overuse of antibiotics has been associated with a diminished gut-microbial diversity in humans and may promote microbiota-associated negative effects to physical health, such as the metabolic syndrome-cluster of diseases and mental illnesses. There is a pressing need to deepen the understanding of the effects of antibiotics at the biochemical level. The current study investigated metabolic effects of two widely prescribed antibiotics-vancomycin and ciprofloxacin-on biofluids and brain tissue samples of NMRI female mice using a 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy-based metabolic profiling approach. While both antibiotics significantly affected the host metabolic signatures of urine and feces, only ciprofloxacin induced metabolic changes in plasma. Metabolic perturbations were pronounced 1 day post-treatment, reverting back to baseline at day 20 post-treatment. Both antibiotics induced changes in the choline metabolism, host-microbial cometabolites, short chain fatty acid production, and protein/purine degradation. The metabolic profiles of brain tissue aqueous extracts did not show any antibiotics-related changes by day 20 post-treatment. The data suggest that the metabolic disruptions in biofluids caused by antibiotics are reversed by day 20 post-treatment when compared to the pre-treatment profiles.
Keywords: 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy; antibiotics; ciprofloxacin; metabolic profiling; multivariate statistical analysis; vancomycin.