Dietary effects on the composition of fecal flora of rats

Abstract

A long-term animal feeding experiment was conducted to compare the effect of meat and Wayne laboratory chow diets on the composition of rat fecal flora. Fecal bacteria were enumerated on selective media under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Intrarectal administration of N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitro-soguanidine (MNNG) affected the count only on the phenylethylalcohol and veillonella-neomycin agars, whereas a slightly higher number of anaerobes appeared in the feces of rats that were treated with MNNG as compared with those obtained in the feces of untreated rats on the meat diet. In the absence of MNNG, feces of meat-fed rats yielded higher bacterial counts on aerobically incubated MacConkey agar, deoxycholate agar, and Pfizer selective enterococcus agar as well as higher numbers of clostridia on anaerobic egg yolk agar than did feces of rats on the Wayne diet. Feces of the group fed the Wayne diet produced more colonies on aerobic mitis-salivarius agar and lactobacillus agar as well as on anaerobically incubated phenylethylalcohol agar, veillonella-neomycin agar, bifidobacteria agar, fusobacterium (Nissui) agar, and kanamycin-vancomycin blood agar. These differences were consistent throughout the 1-year feeding period.