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Response of Germfree, Conventional, Conventionalized and E. coli Monocontaminated Mice to Starvation^{1, 2,}

Department of Germfree Research, Division of Basic Surgical Research, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D. C. and the Department of Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York, New York

The response of germfree, conventional, conventionalized and Escherichia coli monocontaminated mice to starvation was studied. This was undertaken as an extension of some investigations of the effect of microorganisms on the reactions of mice and rats to shock and radiation injury because acute deprivation of food is a common feature of such experiments. Since fasting markedly influences the physiologic and biochemical responses of mice and rats to injury, the results of such experiments reflect the combined effects of injury and food deprivation. Clearly, those factors which condition the animal's response to starvation are of prime importance in evaluating the response to the injury. Conventional and conventionalized mice survived significantly longer than germfree mice when starved. This difference in survival was not due to differences in the rates of loss of body weight by these groups, since the rates of weight loss were the same. The germfree mice died weighing significantly more than the conventional and conventionalized mice. Mice purposefully monocontaminated with a single strain of E. coli (sero-group 024) survived longer than germfree mice in one experiment, but this effect was not constant. Again, the rates of weight loss were the same for these groups of mice. The response to starvation of germfree E. coli monocontaminated mice was not altered by parenteral administration of thiamine.

² A preliminary report of some of these results was made at the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, April, 1962, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

³ Present address: School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, California.

⁴ Present address: Ullevaal Hospital, Oslo, Norway.

⁵ Present address: University of California Medical School, Los Angeles.

⁶ Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York.

Manuscript received 20 July 1967.