scholarly journals A Metagenomics Investigation of Intergenerational Effects of Non-nutritive Sweeteners on Gut Microbiome

2022 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weilan Wang ◽  
Jodi E. Nettleton ◽  
Michael G. Gänzle ◽  
Raylene A. Reimer

To identify possible mechanisms by which maternal consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners increases obesity risk in offspring, we reconstructed the major alterations in the cecal microbiome of 3-week-old offspring of obese dams consuming high fat/sucrose (HFS) diet with or without aspartame (5–7 mg/kg/day) or stevia (2–3 mg/kg/day) by shotgun metagenomic sequencing (n = 36). High throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing (n = 105) was performed for dams, 3- and 18-week-old offspring. Maternal consumption of sweeteners altered cecal microbial composition and metabolism of propionate/lactate in their offspring. Offspring daily body weight gain, liver weight and body fat were positively correlated to the relative abundance of key microbes and enzymes involved in succinate/propionate production while negatively correlated to that of lactose degradation and lactate production. The altered propionate/lactate production in the cecum of weanlings from aspartame and stevia consuming dams implicates an altered ratio of dietary carbohydrate digestion, mainly lactose, in the small intestine vs. microbial fermentation in the large intestine. The reconstructed microbiome alterations could explain increased offspring body weight and body fat. This study demonstrates that intense sweet tastants have a lasting and intergenerational effect on gut microbiota, microbial metabolites and host health.

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (6) ◽  
pp. 919-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine K. Fleissner ◽  
Nora Huebel ◽  
Mohamed Mostafa Abd El-Bary ◽  
Gunnar Loh ◽  
Susanne Klaus ◽  
...  

The gut microbiota has been implicated in host nutrient absorption and energy homeostasis. We studied the influence of different diets on body composition in germ-free (GF) and conventional (CV) mice. GF and CV male adult C3H mice were fedad libituma semi-synthetic low-fat diet (LFD; carbohydrate–protein–fat ratio: 41:42:17; 19·8 kJ/g), a high-fat diet (HFD; 41:16:43; 21·4 kJ/g) or a commercial Western diet (WD; 41:19:41; 21·5 kJ/g). There was no difference in body weight gain between GF and CV mice on the LFD. On the HFD, GF mice gained more body weight and body fat than CV mice, and had lower energy expenditure. GF mice on the WD gained significantly less body fat than GF mice on the HFD. GF mice on both HFD and WD showed increased intestinal mRNA expression of fasting-induced adipose factor/angiopoietin-like protein 4 (Fiaf/Angptl4), but they showed no major changes in circulating Fiaf/Angptl4 compared with CV mice. The faecal microbiota composition of the CV mice differed between diets: the proportion of Firmicutes increased on both HFD and WD at the expense of the Bacteroidetes. This increase in the Firmicutes was mainly due to the proliferation of one family within this phylum: the Erysipelotrichaceae. We conclude that the absence of gut microbiota does not provide a general protection from diet-induced obesity, that intestinal production of Fiaf/Angptl4 does not play a causal role in gut microbiota-mediated effects on fat storage and that diet composition affects gut microbial composition to larger extent than previously thought.


Life ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 254
Author(s):  
Ying Wang ◽  
Jianqing Zhu ◽  
Jie Fang ◽  
Li Shen ◽  
Shuojia Ma ◽  
...  

We characterized the gut microbial composition and relative abundance of gut bacteria in the larvae and adults of Pieris canidia by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The gut microbiota structure was similar across the life stages and sexes. The comparative functional analysis on P. canidia bacterial communities with PICRUSt showed the enrichment of several pathways including those for energy metabolism, immune system, digestive system, xenobiotics biodegradation, transport, cell growth and death. The parameters often used as a proxy of insect fitness (development time, pupation rate, emergence rate, adult survival rate and weight of 5th instars larvae) showed a significant difference between treatment group and untreated group and point to potential fitness advantages with the gut microbiomes in P. canidia. These data provide an overall view of the bacterial community across the life stages and sexes in P. canidia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Durazzi ◽  
Claudia Sala ◽  
Gastone Castellani ◽  
Gerardo Manfreda ◽  
Daniel Remondini ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this paper we compared taxonomic results obtained by metataxonomics (16S rRNA gene sequencing) and metagenomics (whole shotgun metagenomic sequencing) to investigate their reliability for bacteria profiling, studying the chicken gut as a model system. The experimental conditions included two compartments of gastrointestinal tracts and two sampling times. We compared the relative abundance distributions obtained with the two sequencing strategies and then tested their capability to distinguish the experimental conditions. The results showed that 16S rRNA gene sequencing detects only part of the gut microbiota community revealed by shotgun sequencing. Specifically, when a sufficient number of reads is available, Shotgun sequencing has more power to identify less abundant taxa than 16S sequencing. Finally, we showed that the less abundant genera detected only by shotgun sequencing are biologically meaningful, being able to discriminate between the experimental conditions as much as the more abundant genera detected by both sequencing strategies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 681-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.S.Y. Low ◽  
S.-E. Soh ◽  
Y.K. Lee ◽  
K.Y.C. Kwek ◽  
J.D. Holbrook ◽  
...  

Several studies have reported that intestinal microbial colonisation patterns differ between non-allergic and allergic infants. However, the microbial signature underlying the pathogenesis of allergies remains unclear. We aim to gain insight into the development of the intestinal microbiota of healthy infants and infants who develop allergy in early life, and identify potential microbiota biomarkers of later allergic disease. Using a case-control design in a Chinese sub-cohort of a Singaporean birth cohort (GUSTO), we utilised 16S rRNA gene sequencing to assess intestinal microbial composition and diversity of 21 allergic and 18 healthy infants at 3 weeks, 3 months and 6 months of age, and correlated the microbiota with allergy at ages 18 and 36 months. Pronounced differences in intestinal microbiota composition between allergic and healthy infants were observed at 3 months of age. The intestine of healthy infants was colonised with higher abundance of commensal Bifidobacterium. Conversely, Klebsiella, an opportunistic pathogen, was significantly enriched in the allergic infants. Interestingly, infants with a high Klebsiella/Bifidobacterium (K/B) ratio (above the population median K/B ratio) at age 3 months had an odds ratio of developing allergy by 3 years of age of 9.00 (95% confidence interval 1.46-55.50) compared to those with low K/B ratio. This study demonstrated a relationship between the ratio of genera Klebsiella and Bifidobacterium during early infancy and development of paediatric allergy in childhood. Our study postulates that an elevated K/B ratio in early infancy could be a potential indicator of an increased risk of allergy development. This line of research might enable future intervention strategies in early life to prevent or treat allergy. Our study provides new insights into microbial signatures associated with childhood allergy, in particular, suggests that an elevated K/B ratio could be a potential early-life microbiota biomarker of allergic disease.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. e74985242
Author(s):  
Jalceyr Pessoa Figueiredo Junior ◽  
Fernando Guilherme Perazzo Costa ◽  
Ricardo Romão Guerra ◽  
Marcelo Helder Medeiros Santana ◽  
Matheus Ramalho de Lima ◽  
...  

The aim of this study was was to determine the nutritional requirements of digestible methionine+cystine (M+C) for white-egg layers aged one to six weeks. A completely randomized design with five methionine+cystine levels, six replicates, and 30 birds per experimental unit was adopted. Dietary treatments consisted of five diets supplemented with DL-Methionine with resulted in five levels of digestible methionine + cystine, 80% (0.516%), 90% (0.578%), 100% (0.640%), 110% (0.702%), and 120% (0.764%), based on Brazilian tables of nutritional requirements. Performance, serological blood, and histological data were evaluated. Feed intake, feed conversion, hepatic glycogen deposition, enzymatic activity of alanine aminotransferase and gamma-glutamyl transferase, and serum creatinine and albumin levels had showed a quadratic response to the levels of digestible M+C, with the respective requirements: 89.78% (0.575%), 114.33% (0.732%), 86.50% (0.554%), 100% (0.640%), 100.40% (0.643%), 104.30% (0.668%), and 111.88% (0.716%). Increasing levels of methionine+cystine elevated the relative liver weight and the deposition of hepatic glycogen, in addition to promote higher growth in pullets, with better body weight and body weight gain and feed conversion ratio. Our findings suggest that 0.732% digestible methionine+cystine is recommended, which corresponds to an intake of 151.20 mg/bird/d and a Met+Cys:Lys  ratio 83%, for light pullets from one to six weeks.


Author(s):  
Shiju Xiao ◽  
Guangzhong Zhang ◽  
Chunyan Jiang ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Xiaoxu Wang ◽  
...  

BackgroundIncreasing evidence has shown that alterations in the intestinal microbiota play an important role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. The existing relevant studies focus on 16S rRNA gene sequencing, but in-depth research on gene functions and comprehensive identification of microbiota is lacking.ObjectivesTo comprehensively identify characteristic gut microbial compositions, genetic functions and relative metabolites of patients with psoriasis and to reveal the potential pathogenesis of psoriasis.MethodsDNA was extracted from the faecal microbiota of 30 psoriatic patients and 15 healthy subjects, and metagenomics sequencing and bioinformatic analyses were performed. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, cluster of orthologous groups (COG) annotations, and metabolic analyses were used to indicate relative target genes and pathways to reveal the pathogenesis of psoriasis.ResultsCompared with healthy individuals, the gut microbiota of psoriasis patients displayed an alteration in microbial taxa distribution, but no significant difference in microbial diversity. A distinct gut microbial composition in patients with psoriasis was observed, with an increased abundance of the phyla Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia and genera Faecalibacterium, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Megamonas and Roseburia and a decreased abundance of the phyla Bacteroidetes, Euryarchaeota and Proteobacteria and genera Prevotella, Alistipes, and Eubacterium. A total of 134 COGs were predicted with functional analysis, and 15 KEGG pathways, including lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis, WNT signaling, apoptosis, bacterial secretion system, and phosphotransferase system, were significantly enriched in psoriasis patients. Five metabolites, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), isovalerate, isobutyrate, hyaluronan and hemicellulose, were significantly dysregulated in the psoriatic cohort. The dysbiosis of gut microbiota, enriched pathways and dysregulated metabolites are relevant to immune and inflammatory response, apoptosis, the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling pathway, gut-brain axis and brain-skin axis that play important roles in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.ConclusionsA clear dysbiosis was displayed in the gut microbiota profile, genetic functions and relative metabolites of psoriasis patients. This study is beneficial for further understanding the inflammatory pathogenesis of psoriasis and could be used to develop microbiome-based predictions and therapeutic approaches.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Gong ◽  
Cheng Huang ◽  
Xun Yang ◽  
Jianjun Chen ◽  
Juncai Pu ◽  
...  

The microbiota–gut–brain axis has been considered to play an important role in the development of depression, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. The gastrointestinal tract is home to trillions of microbiota and the colon is considered an important site for the interaction between microbiota and host, but few studies have been conducted to evaluate the alterations in the colon. Accordingly, in this study, we established a chronic social defeated stress (CSDS) mice model of depression. We applied 16S rRNA gene sequencing to assess the gut microbial composition and gas and liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy to identify fecal metabolites and colonic lipids, respectively. Meanwhile, we used Spearman’s correlation analysis method to evaluate the associations between the gut microbiota, fecal metabolites, colonic lipids, and behavioral index. In total, there were 20 bacterial taxa and 18 bacterial taxa significantly increased and decreased, respectively, in the CSDS mice. Further, microbial functional prediction demonstrated a disturbance of lipid, carbohydrate, and amino acid metabolism in the CSDS mice. We also found 20 differential fecal metabolites and 36 differential colonic lipids (in the category of glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, and sphingolipids) in the CSDS mice. Moreover, correlation analysis showed that fecal metabolomic signature was associated with the alterations in the gut microbiota composition and colonic lipidomic profile. Of note, three lipids [PC(16:0/20:4), PG(22:6/22:6), and PI(18:0/20:3), all in the category of glycerophospholipids] were significantly associated with anxiety- and depression-like phenotypes in mice. Taken together, our results indicated that the gut microbiota might be involved in the pathogenesis of depression via influencing fecal metabolites and colonic glycerophospholipid metabolism.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Ivanne Le Roy ◽  
Alexander Kurilshikov ◽  
Emily Leeming ◽  
Alessia Visconti ◽  
Ruth Bowyer ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Yoghurt contains live bacteria that could contribute via modulation of the gut microbiota to its reported beneficial effects such as reduced body weight gain and lower incidence of type 2 diabetes. To date, the association between yoghurt consumption and the composition of the gut microbiota is underexplored. Here we used clinical variables, metabolomics, 16S rRNA and shotgun metagenomic sequencing data collected on over 1000 predominantly female UK twins to define the link between the gut microbiota and yoghurt-associated health benefits. Results: According to food frequency questionnaires (FFQ), 73% of subjects consumed yoghurt. Consumers presented a healthier diet pattern (healthy eating index: beta = 2.17±0.34; P = 2.72x10-10) and improved metabolic health characterised by reduced visceral fat (beta = -28.18±11.71 g; P = 0.01). According to 16S rRNA gene analyses and whole shotgun metagenomic sequencing approach consistent taxonomic variations were observed with yoghurt consumption. More specifically, we identified higher abundance of species used as yoghurt starters Streptococcus thermophilus (beta = 0.41±0.051; P = 6.14x10-12) and sometimes added Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis (beta = 0.30±0.052; P = 1.49x10-8) in the gut of yoghurt consumers. Replication in 1103 volunteers from the LifeLines-DEEP cohort confirmed the increase of S. thermophilus among yoghurt consumers. Using food records collected the day prior to faecal sampling we showed that increase in these two yoghurt bacteria could be transient. Metabolomics analysis revealed that B. animalis subsp. lactis was associated with 13 faecal metabolites including a 3-hydroxyoctanoic acid, known to be involved in the regulation of gut inflammation.Conclusions: Yoghurt consumption is associated with reduced visceral fat mass and changes in gut microbiome including transient increase of yoghurt-contained species (i.e. S. thermophilus and B. lactis).


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Xiao Liang ◽  
Chang-Shun Liu ◽  
Xiao-Han Wei ◽  
Ting Xia ◽  
Fei-Long Chen ◽  
...  

Mahuang Fuzi Xixin Decoction (MFXD), a Chinese traditional herbal formulation, has been used to treat allergic rhinitis (AR) in China for centuries. However, the mechanism underlying its effect on AR is unclear. This study investigated the mechanism underlying the therapeutic effects of MFXD on AR. Ovalbumin-induced AR rat models were established, which were then treated with MFXD for 14 days. Symptom scores of AR were calculated. The structure of the gut microbiota was analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and qPCR. Short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) content in rat stool and serum was determined by GC-MS. Inflammatory and immunological responses were assessed by histopathology, ELISA, flow cytometry, and western blotting. Our study demonstrated that MFXD reduced the symptom scores of AR and serum IgE and histamine levels. MFXD treatment restored the diversity of the gut microbiota: it increased the abundance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes and decreased the abundance of Proteobacteria and Cyanobacteria. MFXD treatment also increased SCFA content, including that of acetate, propionate, and butyrate. Additionally, MFXD administration downregulated the number of Th17 cells and the levels of the Th17-related cytokines IL-17 and RORγt. By contrast, there was an increase in the number of Treg cells and the levels of the Treg-related cytokines IL-10 and Foxp3. MFXD and butyrate increased the levels of ZO-1 in the colon. This study indicated MFXD exerts therapeutic effects against AR, possibly by regulating the gut microbial composition and Th17/Treg balance.


Gut ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiran Wei ◽  
Yanmei Li ◽  
Li Yan ◽  
Chunyan Sun ◽  
Qi Miao ◽  
...  

ObjectiveThe significance of the liver-microbiome axis has been increasingly recognised as a major modulator of autoimmunity. The aim of this study was to take advantage of a large well-defined corticosteroids treatment-naïve group of patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) to rigorously characterise gut dysbiosis compared with healthy controls.DesignWe performed a cross-sectional study of individuals with AIH (n=91) and matched healthy controls (n=98) by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. An independent cohort of 28 patients and 34 controls was analysed to validate the results. All the patients were collected before corticosteroids therapy.ResultsThe gut microbiome of steroid treatment-naïve AIH was characterised with lower alpha-diversity (Shannon and observed operational taxonomic units, both p<0.01) and distinct overall microbial composition compared with healthy controls (p=0.002). Depletion of obligate anaerobes and expansion of potential pathobionts including Veillonella were associated with disease status. Of note, Veillonella dispar, the most strongly disease-associated taxa (p=8.85E–8), positively correlated with serum level of aspartate aminotransferase and liver inflammation. Furthermore, the combination of four patients with AIH-associated genera distinguished AIH from controls with an area under curves of approximately 0.8 in both exploration and validation cohorts. In addition, multiple predicted functional modules were altered in the AIH gut microbiome, including lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis as well as metabolism of amino acids that can be processed by bacteria to produce immunomodulatory metabolites.ConclusionOur study establishes compositional and functional alterations of gut microbiome in AIH and suggests the potential for using gut microbiota as non-invasive biomarkers to assess disease activity.


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