germ-free

They first colonized germ-free mice with Candida to see what the fungus consumed to bloom.

In the second leg of the study, fecal samples were harvested from mice with or without ovaries and implanted in germ-free mice to study the impact on weight gain and metabolic and inflammatory activity in the gut, liver and fat tissue.

A collaborative study carried out at the Universities of Helsinki, Eastern Finland and Turku investigated how the maternal microbiota affects fetal development by comparing the foetuses of normal and germ-free mouse dams living in a sterile environment.

The researchers demonstrated that there were considerable differences in gene expression in the intestine, brain and placenta of the foetuses of germ-free and normal mouse dams.

In the gut, genes associated with the immune system and host-microbe interactions were less active in the foetuses of germ-free dams.