Post-Antibiotic Gut Microbiota Resilience Is Associated with Baseline Community Structure and Transient Early Effects of Tryptophan Supplementation in Mice

Antibiotic therapy is important in clinical practice, yet its collateral disruption of the gut microbiota often causes dysbiosis with lasting health consequences. However, the factors underlying interindividual differences in gut microbiota resilience remain poorly understood. Through the reanalysis of a previously published longitudinal human metagenomic cohort, we found clear heterogeneity across individuals in gut microbiota resilience after ciprofloxacin exposure and identified baseline microbial structure as a baseline feature associated with subsequent microbiota recovery. Using a mouse model, we further found that tryptophan supplementation promoted early gut microbiota recovery following antibiotic exposure. Overall, this study defines the ecological assembly dynamics of the gut microbiota under antibiotic stress, identifies baseline community structure as a factor associated with resilience, and highlights tryptophan supplementation as a potential strategy to promote microbiota recovery following antibiotic exposure.