High-cholesterol diet does not alter gut microbiota composition in mice

Abstract

IntroductionWestern diet containing both saturated fat and cholesterol impairs cardio-metabolic health partly by modulating diversity and function of the microbiota. While diet containing only high fat has comparable effects, it is unclear how diets only enriched in cholesterol impact the microbiota. Therefore, we aimed to characterize the response of host and microbiota to a high cholesterol (HC) diet in mice susceptible to cardio-metabolic disease.MethodsLDLR knockout mice received either 1.25% HC or no cholesterol containing control diet (NC) for 12 weeks before characterizing host cholesterol metabolism and intestinal microbiota composition (next generation sequencing).ResultsHC diet substantially increased plasma (1.6-fold) and liver cholesterol levels (21-fold), biliary cholesterol secretion (4.5-fold) and fecal neutral sterol excretion (68-fold, each p < 0.001) but not fecal bile acid excretion. Interestingly, despite the profound changes in intestinal cholesterol homeostasis no differences in microbial composition between control and HC-fed mice were detected. In both groups the main phyla were Bacteroidetes (55%), Firmicutes (27%) and Verrucomicrobia (14%).ConclusionOur results demonstrate that in mice HC diet alone does not alter the microbiota composition despite inducing substantial adaptive changes in whole body cholesterol homeostasis. The impact of Western diet on intestinal microbiota thus appears to be mediated exclusively by its high fat content.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12986-017-0170-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Effect of Berberine on Atherosclerosis and Gut Microbiota Modulation and Their Correlation in High-Fat Diet-Fed ApoE−/− Mice

“…A meta-analysis showed that the decrease of Turicibacter is consistent with increased inflammation in obesity (Jiao et al, 2018). In addition, the decrease in Turicibacter has been associated with abundant dietary cholesterol and dietary fat (Everard et al, 2014;Zhong et al, 2015;Dimova et al, 2017). We found that both high and low doses of BBR enriched the abundance of Turicibacter, and the effect was significant and more pronounced at the high dose.…”

Analysis of the gut microbiome and plasma short-chain fatty acid profiles in a spontaneous mouse model of metabolic syndrome

“…Dimova et al . showed that Turicibacter increased in mice fed a high-fat diet 38 . However, two studies reported a decrease in Turicibacter in mice in response to high-fat feeding 62 , 63 .…”

Relationship Between Dietary Sterols and Gut Microbiota: A Review

“…In the case of vegans, slight changes in the anaerobic bacterial genera ( Bifidobacterium , Bacteroides , and Clostridium ) have been observed compared to omnivorous subjects . However, the available data seem to be controversial, since no differences in the gut microbiota of vegetarian and omnivorous Slovak subjects have been found, and the levels remained stable after a high cholesterol diet in a murine study . Other authors have also evaluated the influence of PS upon the gut microbiota in the context of a clinical trial in which 13 healthy subjects received during 3 weeks a control or plant stanol ester‐enriched margarine (3 g a day of plant stanols) – no differences being observed in gut microbiota composition compared to control group …”