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Antibiotic therapy typically causes collateral damage by disrupting the intestinal microbiota. One consequence is loss of resistance to colonization by intestinal pathogens, including Clostridium difficile and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The mechanisms by which a normal gut microbiota mediate colonization resistance are incompletely understood and may differ among bacterial species.
To investigate this issue, researchers treated mice with ampicillin, inoculated some of them with Klebsiella pneumoniae or vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), and then challenged them with the other species. Regardless of which pathogen was used for primary colonization or secondary challenge, stable intestinal colonization could be established with both b…