Conclusion
The high abundance of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes in microbiota composition and their imbalanced ratio in both model mice reflect the state of metabolic disorders of these mice. Differences in microbiota composition between the two model mice of the same age or in one model mice with different ages were assumed to be closely linked to the fluctuation of their blood glucose levels with age. The data on gut microbiota in ob/ob and db/db mice investigated herein has broad implications for the pathogenesis study and drug discovery on obesity and related complications.
Methods
High-throughput sequencing was used to obtain the sequences of the highly variable 16S rRNA V3-V4 region from fecal samples. The taxa with high abundance in both model mice were identified by bioinformatics analysis. Moreover, the taxa with divergent abundance in one model mice at different ages or in both model mice at the same age were also recognized.