Fig. 7

F. varium provokes CADASIL-like behaviors and increases systemic inflammation in the mouse model. A The mice experimental design. A 4-week-old WT and Notch3^R170C/+ mice received F. varium and PBS administration, respectively (n = 8 for each group). Feces samples were collected once every week. In the fifth week, blood samples were collected, and an open-field test was performed, and at the last day of this week, all mice were sacrificed, and blood and colon samples were collected. B–C The abundance of F. varium, determined by qPCR, was normalized to pan-bacterial primers targeting the 16S rRNA gene (UNI 16S) in bacterial DNA extracted from feces (B) and mucus from colon (C) of WT and Notch3^R170C/+ mice. N = 5 mice per group. p-values were determined by an unpaired Student’s t-test. Data are from two independent experiments and represented as the mean ± SD. D The comparison of serum IL-1β levels in WT and Notch3^R170C/+ mice after 4 weeks administration of F. varium compared to PBS (n = 6 for each group). E Peripheral blood of F. varium-treated mice was subjected to flow cytometric analysis. Monocytes were identified as CD45⁺CD11b⁺F4/80⁺ cells. The mean fluorescent intensity (MFI) of caspase-8 was analyzed. p-values were determined by one-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s test. F BMDM were isolated and induced from WT and Notch3^R170C/+ mice (age = 8–12 weeks). BMDM were treated with F. varium (BMDM: bacteria = 1: 20) for 1 h and subjected to immunostaining of caspase-8, IL-1β, and NLRP3. Experiments were repeated 3 times. G Representative figures of the open-field test. The figures were generated with the video tracking system. H–J The total distance traveled (H), the proportion of distance and time in the center (I–J) in four groups of mice. p-values were determined to compare F. varium and PBS treatment in WT and Notch3^R170C/+ mice separately using an unpaired Student’s t-test. *p-value < 0.05; **p-value < 0.01; ***p-value < 0.001; ns, not significant