To do this, they colonized the intestines of germ - free mice with
a synthetic human gut microbiota and exposed the mice to either a plant fiber - free diet or a plant fiber - rich diet.
Using a «gnotobiotic mouse model» — where mice were «colonized with
a synthetic human gut microbiota composed of fully sequenced commensal bacteria» — Desai et al reported on the effects of different diets with different fibre content.