Diet‐derived microbial metabolites in health and disease

Abstract

The gut microbiota helps us digest food and has been associated with both good health and risk of disease. Although compositions of the gut microbiota are highly divergent, the gut microbiota exhibits a high level of functional redundancy making it difficult to reliably link gut microbiome patterns to health and diet across individuals. Thus, there is a need to move beyond profiling of the gut microbial composition to the assessment of gut microbial metabolic activity in order to expand knowledge on the impact of the gut microbiota on health. Metabolomics has already proven its utility in identifying gut‐derived microbial metabolites, which may be mediators of diet‐induced host–microbial crosstalk important for health. These diet‐derived metabolites include, among many others, the short‐chain fatty acids originating from bacterial degradation of dietary fibres and proteins, secondary bile acids derived from primary bile acids, microbial tryptophan catabolites resulting from proteolysis, imidazole propionate produced from histidine and trimethylamine N‐oxide, a host–microbial co‐metabolite of nutrients such as phosphatidylcholine, choline and L‐carnitine, present in high‐fat foods. These co‐metabolites have been associated with beneficial and detrimental effects in the host. However, the vast majority of metabolites measured by untargeted metabolomics in human blood and excreta remain unknown and may include additional microbial molecules of importance for health. Thus, there is great potential, yet to be explored, for identifying additional diet‐derived microbial products that affect the host. Herein, we review key advances, challenges and limitations in our understanding of diet–microbiome interactions and diet‐derived microbial metabolites in relation to human health and discuss how metabolomics may shed light on inter‐individual differences in dietary responses.

Where to Look into the Puzzle of Polyphenols and Health? The Postbiotics and Gut Microbiota Associated with Human Metabotypes

“…[ 80,119–121 ] However, in vivo evidence on their health effects is still scarce and very limited in humans. [ 8,122 ]…”

Mediterranean diet intervention in overweight and obese subjects lowers plasma cholesterol and causes changes in the gut microbiome and metabolome independently of energy intake

“…The microbiome partly but significantly affects individual metabolism and how one responds to changes in dietary habits 6 7. Host health is influenced by microbiome composition and by microbial metabolites that can be produced from host metabolic intermediates or from dietary precursors 8. Therefore, current trends in personalised nutrition suggest that diet can be used to modulate microbiome composition and function 9 10.…”

Extraction, Enrichment, and Quantification of Main Antioxidant Aglycones of Flavonoids and Tannins from Melastoma Dodecandrum Lour.: Guided by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS

“…An ultrasonic extractor (DL-720J, Shanghai Zhixin Instrument Co., Ltd.) was used to extract antioxidants from MD. Firstly, about 0.1 g MD powder was weighted accurately and mixed with various volumes (10,20,30,40, and 50 mL) of different concentrations of methanol aqueous solution (0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%, V methanol /V water ), and then the mixtures were treated with different times (15,30,45,60, and 75 min) at certain temperatures (25, 35, 45, and 55°C). After extraction, the samples were cooled to room temperature and centrifuged at 3500 rpm for 15 min.…”

“…is innovative research has attracted great attention [8][9][10]. In addition, many reports have revealed the antioxidant [11], anti-inflammatory [12], and hypoglycemic activities [13] of flavonoids which are also found to be abundant in MD.…”