Antibiotics revolutionized the treatment of
infectious diseases; however, it is now clear that broad-spectrum
antibiotics alter the composition and function of the host's microbiome. The microbiome plays a key role in human health, and its perturbation is increasingly recognized as contributing to many human diseases. Widespread broad-spectrum
antibiotic use has also resulted in the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, spurring the development of pathogen-specific strategies such as
monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to combat
bacterial infection. Not only are pathogen-specific approaches not expected to induce resistance in nontargeted bacteria, but they are hypothesized to have minimal impact on the gut microbiome. Here, we compare the effects of
antibiotics, pathogen-specific MAbs, and their controls (saline or control
IgG [c-
IgG]) on the gut microbiome of 7-week-old, female, C57BL/6 mice. The magnitude of change in taxonomic abundance, bacterial diversity, and bacterial metabolites, including
short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) and
bile acids in the fecal pellets from mice treated with pathogen-specific MAbs, was no different from that with animals treated with saline or an
IgG control. Conversely, dramatic changes were observed in the relative abundance, as well as alpha and beta diversity, of the fecal microbiome and bacterial metabolites in the feces of all
antibiotic-treated mice. Taken together, these results indicate that pathogen-specific MAbs do not alter the fecal microbiome like broad-spectrum
antibiotics and may represent a safer, more-targeted approach to antibacterial
therapy.