Fig. 2: FMT drives the clearance of systemically disseminated pathogens.

a–c In order to cause immediate systemic dissemination, the PC was injected directly into the peritoneum (IP) of mice. In the IP model, mice were not subjected to starvation, antibiotic treatment, or hepatectomy. To test the protective effects of FMT in this model, immediately upon injection of PC and then once more 14 h post injection, FMT or an AC-FMT was administered via enema. a Timeline of the IP sepsis model. b Kaplan–Meier survival curves (n = 21, 26, and 25 for PC, PC + FMT, and PC + AC-FMT-treated mice, respectively; Log-rank (Mantel–Cox) test; P = 0.001 between PC/PC + FMT, P = 0.4905 between PC/PC + AC-FMT, P < 0.0001 between PC + FMT/PC + AC-FMT). c Quantitative culture results of indicated sites comparing the PC burden of PC, PC + FMT, and PC + AC-FMT mice ~20 h post injection of PC. On radar plot, each dot along the axes represents the CFU/mL of blood and peritoneal fluid or CFU/mg of liver and spleen of one mouse, the further the distance from the center of the plot, the higher the pathogen burden. The third and first quartiles and the median are indicated with the edges of the colored boxes and the thick black line respectively (n = 5 mice/group); Kruskal–Wallis test/Dunn’s multiple comparisons test; PC burden significantly different between PC/PC + FMT in the blood [SM*], liver [KO**, SM*], peritoneum [CA*, KO*, SM*], and spleen [CA**, KO*]. PC burden significantly different between PC + AC-FMT/PC + FMT in the blood [EF**, KO*], liver [CA**, EF**, SM*], peritoneum [CA**, EF**, KO*], and spleen [EF*, KO*, SM*]. No significant differences between PC/PC + AC-FMT. *P ≤ 0.05, **P ≤ 0.01.