Murine Post Traumatic Osteoarthritis Does Not Strongly Impact Gut Microbiome Community Structure, But Significantly Alters Thefunctional Output Of Resident Taxa

Purpose: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of physical disability in the US and globally. Among the various etiologies (e.g., age, obesity, genetics), trauma as an initiator is common, with posttraumatic OA (PTOA) accounting for 12-15% of all OA cases. Recently, it has been suggested that the gut microbiome may play a role in OA, with evidence suggesting that in the context of obesity gut microbiome dysbiosis accelerates disease. It is not known if the gut microbiome is involved in other types of OA, and we set out to determine if there are changes in the gut microbial community in the specific context of PTOA. In this work, we hypothesized that progressive PTOA is associated with signature changes in the gut microbiome that can be termed as a PTOA-associated dysbiosis. The gut microbiome's role in promoting osteoarthritis may be explained by these microbial changes.