Preclinical Microbiome Research

Microbiome research on murine models can help to:

• Screen and improve safety and efficacy of your product (drugs, nutraceuticals…) to prevent health disorders

• Evaluate the clinical effect of a product or a medical treatment: prebiotic, probiotic, antibiotic, fecal transplantation…

• Investigate the interplay between clinical parameters and microbiome compositions

• Investigate the effect of disrupting the microbiome in certain life stages of the model

• Biomarker and bioactive molecules discovery

MURINE MODELS AS MICROBIOME RESEARCH TOOL TOWARDS HUMAN MICROBIOME ANALYSIS

The microbiota of the human gut has become of major interest for the scientific community, since its impact on human health has been demonstrated.

Having been increasingly used in biomedical research, murine models have become the most commonly used animal model in laboratory and is now considered as the model of choice for most studies in emerging field.

Murine models allow studying gut microbiota features (perturbations, functionalities…) in a controlled experimental setup. The preclinical approach can help to confirm mechanistic hypothesis involved in pathologies, to understand host-microbiota interactions and thus, to provide valuable insights prior to human clinical trial.

A CASE STUDY: “IMPACT OF A COMBINATION THERAPY ON THE INTESTINE HEALTH” (Figure 1)

Drug treatment can cause severe damages as microbiota unbalance, degradation of intestine mucosa… that can lead to dramatic health consequences.

The objective of the study was to assess the efficacy of an antibiotic additive to reduce the risk of intestinal damage and bacterial infections.

Longitudinal study was conducted on mice analysis before, during and after treatment.

• Global analysis of bacterial composition from stools but also blood to evaluate bacteria translocation (intestine permeability).

• qPCR on specific bacteria in stools and in blood.

Within this pre-clinical study, the drug treatment associated with the additive has shown minor modifications of the mice microbiota and a decrease of the intestinal mucosa inflammation.

BIOFORTIS WILL ADD VALUE IN YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT

Biofortis is a full-service and specialized contract research organization for microbiome research. Thanks to its unique microbiome platform, Biofortis can handle all the workflow of microbiota analysis. Based on a solid experience in managing and conducting clinical and analytical studies, we can help our clients to investigate how microbiome is linked with various diseases or pathological mechanisms.

For each client, we customize the experimental design and ideal statistical workflow to ensure adequacy between your study and objectives and to help us in your strategic research decision. Our dedicated services cover:

• The study design

• Recommendations for sampling collection and if necessary, dedicated kits preparation

• Microbiota analysis (targeted metagenomics – NGS)

• Bacterial quantification (qPCR)

• Bioinformatics (sequence processing, quality control of reads, taxonomy assignment, clustering…)

• Biostatistics and methodology

• Scientific interpretation and communications

Contact us for more information: click here

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