Lactobacillus plantarum BSGP201683 Improves the Intestinal Barrier of Giant Panda Microbiota-Associated Mouse Infected by Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli K88.

Giant pandas often suffered from gastrointestinal disease, especially the captive sub-adult one. Our study aims to investigate whether L. plantarum G83, a good panda-derived probiotic, can improve the intestinal barrier against the enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli K88 (E. coli K88) infection in giant panda microbiota-associated mice (GPAM). We treated SPF mice with antibiotics cocktail and transplanted the giant panda intestinal microbiota to set up a GPAM. Our results demonstrated that the microbiota of GPAM changed over time and was relatively stable in the short-term experiment (2-4 weeks). Whereafter, the GPAM pretreated with L. plantarum G83 for 15 days and infected with enterotoxigenic E. coli K88. The result indicated that the number of Bifidobacteria spp. increased in GPAM-G and GPAM-GE groups; the Lactobacillus spp. only increased in the GPAM-G group. Although the abundance of Enterobacteriaceae spp. only decreased in the GPAM-G group, the copy number of Escherichia coli in the GPAM-E group was significantly lower than that in the other groups. Meanwhile, the L. plantarum G83-induced alteration of microbiota could increase the mRNA expression of Claudin-1, Zo-1, and Occludin-1 in the GPAM-G group in the ileum; only Occludin-1 was increased in the GPAM-GE group. The sIgA in the ileum showed a positive response, also the result of body weight and histology in both the GPAM-G and GPAM-GE group. These results indicated that the L. plantarum G83 could improve the intestinal barrier to defense the enterotoxigenic E. coli K88 invasion.