Schistosoma mansoni Infection Causes Consistent Changes to the Fecal Bacterial Microbiota of Mice Across and Within Sites

Authors

Mariam A. Mhanna, Old Dominion UniversityFollow
David T. Gauthier, Old Dominion UniversityFollow
Lisa M. Shollenberger, Old Dominion UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0324638

Publication Title

PLoS One

Volume

20

Issue

5

Pages

e0324638 (1-15)

Abstract

Eggs of Schistosoma mansoni are produced by adult female worms in mesenteries of infected hosts. Eggs can cross the intestinal barrier and form granulomas in the tissue or breach and exit the host through fecal excretion. These interactions may affect the host microbiome assemblages. Given the potential for schistosomal alteration of host gut microbiome and subsequent effects on the fecal bacterial composition, it is important to conduct controlled microbiome studies on model animals. While pursuing these studies, it is important to take into account the different conditions in which microbiome studies are conducted and their consequent impacts on variability and reproducibility of results. In particular, we are interested in inter-institutional effects on controlled microbiome studies, in which the study location itself may impact study outcomes. In this work, we report global changes caused by acute and chronic schistosomiasis on the fecal microbiome of mice at two different institutions and three timepoints.

Rights

© 2025 Mhanna et al.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are created.

Data Availability

Article states: "The raw sequence data is available in the Mendeley database https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/dhb6bw6h3j/2."

Original Publication Citation

Mhanna, M. A., Gauthier, D. T., & Shollenberger, L. M. (2025). Schistosoma mansoni infection causes consistent changes to the fecal bacterial microbiota of mice across and within sites. PLoS One, 20(5), 1-15, Article e0324638. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324638

Repository Citation

Mhanna, Mariam A.; Gauthier, David T.; and Shollenberger, Lisa M., "Schistosoma mansoni Infection Causes Consistent Changes to the Fecal Bacterial Microbiota of Mice Across and Within Sites" (2025). Biological Sciences Faculty Publications. 641.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/biology_fac_pubs/641

ORCID

0000-0002-0242-366X (Mhanna), 0000-0002-0943-0838 (Shollenberger)