Colonization resistance of the digestive tract of mice during systemic antibiotic treatment.

During systemic treatment of mice with ampicillin or streptomycin, oral contaminations with exogenous bacterial species resulted in an abnormal colonization pattern. The contaminants persisted much longer and in much higher concentrations in the caecum of systemically treated mice than in control animals. Spread of the contaminant into the mesenteric lymph nodes and the spleen was found much more often in the antibiotic treated group. This, however, was only seen when the contaminant was ;resistant' to the antibiotic injected. The experiments suggest that the ;CR-inducing species' of the microflora live in close contact with the mucosa and therefore could be identical with the anaerobic tapered rods described by Savage & Dubos (1968).