A Method to Define the Effects of Environmental Enrichment on Colon Microbiome Biodiversity in a Mouse Colon Tumor Model

Summary

Environmental Enrichment (EE) is an animal housing environment that is used to reveal mechanisms that underlie the connections between lifestyle, stress, and disease. This protocol describes a procedure that uses a mouse model of colon tumorigenesis and EE to specifically define alterations in microbiota biodiversity that may impact animal mortality.

Abstract

Several recent studies have illustrated the beneficial effects of living in an enriched environment on improving human disease. In mice, environmental enrichment (EE) reduces tumorigenesis by activating the mouse immune system, or affects tumor bearing animal survival by stimulating the wound repair response, including improved microbiome diversity, in the tumor microenvironment. Provided here is a detailed procedure to assess the effects of environmental enrichment on the biodiversity of the microbiome in a mouse colon tumor model. Precautions regarding animal breeding and considerations for animal genotype and mouse colony integration are described, all of which ultimately affect microbial biodiversity. Heeding these precautions may allow more uniform microbiome transmission, and consequently will alleviate non-treatment dependent effects that can confound study findings. Further, in this procedure, microbiota changes are characterized using 16S rDNA sequencing of DNA isolated from stool collected from the distal colon following long-term environmental enrichment. Gut microbiota imbalance is associated with the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer, but also of obesity and diabetes among others. Importantly, this protocol for EE and microbiome analysis can be utilized to study the role of microbiome pathogenesis across a variety of diseases where robust mouse models exist that can recapitulate human disease.

Introduction

Environmental enrichment (EE) studies utilize complex housing parameters to affect social stimulation (large housing cages, larger groups of animals), cognitive stimulation (huts, tunnels, nesting materials, platforms) and physical activity (running wheels). EE has been utilized by many labs to understand the effects of increased activity and improved social and cognitive interactions on disease initiation and progression using a wide array of mouse models, including barbering induced alopecia, Alzheimer's disease, Rett syndrome, and several tumor and digestive disease models^1,2,

Protocol

All methods described here were performed in accordance with protocols approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at the University of Utah.

1. Experimental Design and EE and Control Cage Setup

Note: For reference, an outline of the experimental design is illustrated (Figure 1).

1. Set up control (NE) and EE cages (Figure 2).
   1. To set up NE cages, use autoclaved conventional control cages (Table 1) that lack enrichment devices.
   2. For l....

Results

Several studies have demonstrated that the practice of mind-body medicine improves health outcomes. Similarly, in mice, environmental enrichment improves outcomes including improved lifespan and tumor wound repair⁶. Therefore, an EE procedure was developed with the aim of defining the role of microbiota in this phenotype while first normalizing the microbiome prior to the initiation of the experiment (Figure 1). Importantly, all breedi.......

Discussion

This procedure allows for the analysis of microbiota isolated from stool following environmental enrichment of normal or tumor bearing animals. Because these are large experiments which involve breeding to obtain many animals of different sexes and genotypes, normalizing the microbiome between animals prior to commencement of the experiment is essential to avoid non-EE related effects on microbiome biodiversity.

For consistency between NE and EE conditions, the breeding process is conducted to.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Teklad Diets/Harlan Labs Chow	Harlan Labs	3980X	Standard irradiated chow formulated by Dr. Mario Capecchi in collaboration with Harlan Labs.
Cell-Sorb Plus bedding	Fangman Specialties	82010	Autoclave prior to use.
AIMS Tattooing System For Neonates	AIMS	NEO-9	https://animalid.com/neonate-rodent-tattoo-identification/32. Other animal grade tattoo systems and inks can be used with similar results including the Aramis Micro Tattoo Kit.
Zyfone One Cage 2100 AllerZone Mouse Micro-Isolator System Complete with cage, AllerZone filter top and modular diet delivery system	Lab Products	82120ZF	Each EE cage requires one of each catalog # 82120ZF, 82100ZF, and 82101ZF, as well as two of 82109ZF. Food is only in one side.
Zyfone One Cage 2100 Life Span Enrichment Device	Lab Products	82109ZF	Each EE cage requires one of each catalog # 82120ZF, 82100ZF, and 82101ZF, as well as two of 82109ZF. Food is only in one side.
Zyfone One Cage 2100 Cage 13-7/8" Length X 19-1/16" Width X 7-3/4" Depth	Lab Products	82100ZF	Each EE cage requires one of each catalog # 82120ZF, 82100ZF, and 82101ZF, as well as two of 82109ZF. Food is only in one side.
Zyfone One Cage 2100 AllerZone Micro-Isolator filter top	Lab Products	82101ZF	Each EE cage requires one of each catalog # 82120ZF, 82100ZF, and 82101ZF, as well as two of 82109ZF. Food is only in one side.
Tunnel	Bio-Serv	K3323 or K3332	Connect cages together and use for enrichment
Grommet to connect Tunnel to cages	Fabricated by the University of Utah Machine Shop	n/a	Be certain the material is resistant to chewing and autoclavable
Fast-track wheel	Bio-Serv	K3250 or K3251	Use with mouse igloo and floor
Mouse Igloo	Bio-Serv	K3328, K3570 or K3327	Use with Fast-track wheel and floor
Mouse Igloo floor	Bio-Serv	K3244	Use with mouse Igloo and Fast-Track
Mouse Hut	Bio-Serv	K3272, K3102 or K3271
Crawl Ball	Bio-Serv	K3330 or K3329
Bio-hut	Bio-Serv	K3352	Wood pulp hut used for sheltering and nesting
Adhesive film	VWR	60941-072	Use to temporarily cover drilled hole in large cage to prevent mice from escaping
Laminar Flow Ventilated Rack	Techniplast	Bio-C36	The cabinet we used in this study is not currently supplied. The Bio-C36 is very similar.
1.5 mL Microfuge Tube- RNAse and DNAse free	Any supplier
QIAamp DNA Stool MiniKit	Qiagen	51504	This kit supplies reagents for 50 DNA preparations. Stool Lysis Buffer=ASL; Guanidinium Chloride Lysis Buffer= AL; Wash Buffer 1 with Guanidinium Chloride= AW1; Wash Buffer 2= AW2; Elution Buffer with EDTA=AE
Waterbath (capable of heating to 95)	Any supplier		For 94 degree incubation of stool samples to lyse cells.
Waterbath (capable of heating to 70 degrees)	Any supplier		For 70 degree incubation of stool samples
Ethanol (200 proof)	Sigma Aldrich	E7023
Fluorometer: Qubit	ThermoFisher Scientific	Q33216
Qubit dsDNA broad Range Assay Kit	ThermoFisher Scientific	Q32850
EB Buffer or 10 mM Tris pH 8.5	Qiagen	19086
Experiment specific primers	Any Supplier
PCR grade water	Any supplier
2X KAPA HiFi HotStart Ready Mix	Kapa Biosystems	KK2601	For Amplicon Amplification (1.25 mL allows 100 rxns).
Agarose for running diagnostic gels	Any supplier
TapeStation High Sensitivity D1000 Screen Tape Trace	Agilent	5067-5583	TapeStation or Bioanalyzer instruments are common in Institutional Genomics Cores to analyze library quality . Alternatively a Bioanalyzer DNA1000 Chip (Agilent, 5067-1504) can be used.
Agencourt AMPure XP Magnetic Beads	Beckman Coulter	A63880	Magentic beads For PCR cleanup- 5 mL will clean 250 PCR reactions
Magnetic stand	Life Technologies	AM10027
Library Preparation Guide	Illumina		Illumina. 16S Metagenomic Sequencing Library Preparation: Preparing 16S ribosomal RNA Gene Amplicons for the Illumina MiSeq System. https://support.illumina.com/content/dam/illumina-support/documents/documentation/chemistry_documentation/16s/16s-metagenomic-library-prep-guide-15044223-b.pdf.
Unique Dual Indexing	Illumina	Illumina Experiment Manager Software	Freely available at: https://support.illumina.com/sequencing/sequencing_software/experiment_manager/downloads.html
Nextera XT 96 Index Kit	Illumina	FC-131-1002	Used to add barcodes to amplicons
MicroAmp Optical 96-well reaction plate	Applied Biosystems/ThermoFisher	N8010560
TruSeq Index Plate Fixture	Illumina	FC-130-1005
Adhesive clear plate seal	Applied Biosystems /ThermoFisher	4360954	Applied Biosystems/ThermoFisher Microamp adhesive film
Sequencing by MiSeq with v3 reagents and dual 300 bp reads	Illumina	MS-102-3003
PhiX Control Kit	Illumina	FC-110-3001
Proteinase K (600 mAU/ml)	Qiagen	19131	Equivalent to 20 mg/ml of proteinase K. Supplied with QiaAmp kit
Data Analysis Tools	Qiime	QIIME software Tools	Installation may differ based on your system and the QIIME website describes several options (http://qiime.org/install/install.html). For this study, MacQIIME software package 1.9.1 was utilized (compiled by Werner Lab, SUNY, http://www.wernerlab.org/software/macqiime
Step 13.2.	Qiime	FastQ Join method	(http://code.google.com/p/ea-utils  ).  For this study Multiple join paired ends was used http://qiime.org/scripts/multiple_join_paired_ends.html. Aronesty, E. ea-utils: Command-line tools for processing biological sequencing data. Expression Analysis, Durham, NC. (2011).
Step 13.3.	Qiime	De-Novo OTU picking protocol	http://qiime.org/scripts/pick_de_novo_otus.html.
Step 13.3.1.		Open Taxonomic Units (OTUs) using Uclust	Edgar, R.C. Search and clustering orders of magnitude faster than BLAST. Bioinformatics. 26 (19), 2460-2461, doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btq461 (2010).
Step 13.3.1.	Pynast	Pynast	Caporaso, J.G. et al. PyNAST: a flexible tool for aligning sequences to a template alignment. Bioinformatics. 26 (2), 266-267, doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btp636 (2010).
Step 13.3.1.	Pynast	Pynast_Greengenes	DeSantis, T.Z. et al. Greengenes, a chimera-checked 16S rRNA gene database and workbench compatible with ARB. Appl Environ Microbiol. 72 (7), 5069-5072, doi:10.1128/AEM.03006-05 (2006). Greengenes version 13_8 was used in this study
13.3.1. Note:	Qiime	Multiple Split Libraries	http://qiime.org/scripts/multiple_split_libraries_fastq.html.
13.3.1. Note:	Qiime	Pick de novo OTUs script	http://qiime.org/scripts/pick_de_novo_otus.html
Step 13.2.2.	Qiime	Create a mapping file	http://qiime.org/documentation/file_formats.html.
Step 13.2.2.	Qiime	Validate a mapping file	http://qiime.org/scripts/validate_mapping_file.html.
Step 13.3.3.	Qiime	Link the OTU to sample description to mapping file	http://qiime.org/scripts/make_otu_network.html.
Step 13.3.4.	Qiime	Summarize Taxa through plots	http://qiime.org/scripts/summarize_taxa_through_plots.html.
Step 13.3.5.	Qiime	Biome Summarize table	http://biom-format.org/documentation/summarizing_biom_tables.html  In this study, all samples were rarified to 20,000 OTUs followed by analysis using alpha rarefaction script in QIIME.