by Em Schissler
Congratulations to Megan on her newly published paper in the April 30th issue of Nature!
Her study, titled “Diet outperforms microbial transplant to drive microbiome recovery in mice”, explores how a Western-style diet (WD)—high in fat and low in fiber—impacts microbiome recovery after antibiotic treatment.
The paper demonstrates that only mice fed regular chow (RC), a diet rich in complex carbohydrates, undergo rapid and robust microbiome recovery after antibiotics. This recovery is marked by increased microbial diversity and the emergence of syntrophic cross-feeding interactions, which promote a cooperative and resilient microbial community. In contrast, mice on a Western diet fail to recover their microbiomes effectively. Their guts become dominated by a few opportunistic species that consume simple resources without producing byproducts to support the broader microbial ecosystem.
Importantly, the study shows that dietary intervention alone is both necessary and sufficient to drive recovery; microbial transplants are not. These findings challenge the assumption that FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) is a universal solution to dysbiosis, emphasizing that diet is a foundational and often overlooked factor in microbiome restoration. The study also suggests that current microbiome therapeutics—including FMT, probiotics, or live biotherapeutics, may not be effective unless paired with the right dietary environment.
Read the full paper: Nature, 2025
Citation:
Kennedy, M.S., Freiburger, A., Cooper, M. et al. Diet outperforms microbial transplant to drive microbiome recovery in mice. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08937-9