2026-05-24T05:26:04Zhttps://keep.lib.asu.edu/oai/request

oai:keep.lib.asu.edu:node-2008852025-05-09T20:51:40Zoai_pmh:alloai_pmh:repo_items

200885 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.200885 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 2025-05 20 pages McFarlane, Kyle McFarlane, Kyle Roberts, Joseph Kim, Min-Hyun Barrett, The Honors College School of Life Sciences Department of Psychology Bone fractures are common traumatic events. This is especially true amongst the elderly population, as increased age is a risk factor for delayed fracture repair by impacting numerous steps of the healing process. Fracture healing is facilitated by inflammation, and an adequate inflammatory phase is pivotal for successful bone repair. Gut microbial dysbiosis is linked to atypical immune responses, which are often accompanied by increased production of inflammatory cytokines (Schirmer, 2016). We recently reported that fracture induces dysbiosis that is associated with systemic inflammation (Roberts JL, 2023). However, whether the gut microbiota contributes to this post-fracture inflammatory response remains unknown. Here, we sought to investigate the impact of gut microbiota depletion on the systemic inflammatory response to simple bone fractures. We found that gut microbiota depletion significantly decreases spleen weight after fracture, which may be due to decreased inflammation, and decreases systemic levels of inflammatory cytokines in the serum and the small intestine. Our study provides new insight into the contribution of the gut microbiota to systemic inflammatory responses to fracture, highlighting the potential utility of targeting the gut microbiota to manage post-fracture systemic inflammation. Nutrition Gut Microbiota Inflammation Fracture Dysbiosis Orthopaedics Contributions of the Gut Microbiota to Systemic Inflammation After Fracture