High‐fat diet in mice led to increased severity of spermatogenesis impairment by lead exposure: perspective from gut microbiota and the efficacy of probiotics

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The mechanism of multifactorial spermatogenesis impairment is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the reproductive toxicity of lead (Pb) in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) and to delineate the important role of gut microbiota.RESULTS: Results showed that, compared with mice fed a normal diet (ND), Pb exposure caused more severe spermatogenesis impairment in HFD-fed mice, including decreased sperm count and motility, seminiferous tubule injury, serum and intratesticular testosterone decline, and downregulated expression level of spermatogenesis-related genes. Besides, 16S sequencing indicated that HFD-fed mice had increased severity of gut microbiota dysbiosis by Pb exposure compared to ND-fed mice. With fecal microbiota transplantation, the same trend of spermatogenesis impairment occurred in recipient mice, which confirmed the important role of gut microbiota. Moreover, probiotics supplementation restored the gut microbial ecosystem, and thus improved spermatogenic function.CONCLUSION: Our work suggested that a population with HFD might face more reproductive health risks upon Pb exposure, and revealed an intimate linkage between microbiota dysbiosis and spermatogenesis impairment, accompanied by the potential usefulness of probiotics as prophylactic and therapeutic.

Comparative analysis of microbial community structure in different times of Panax ginseng Rhizosphere microbiome and soil properties under larch forest

“…Following the standard procedure of Majorbio Bio-Pharm Technology Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China https://www.majorbio.com/ ), the purified amplicons were equimolar merged, and paired-end sequencing was performed on the Illumina MiSeq platform (TruSeq™ DNA SamplePrep Kit, Illumina, U.S.). For bacterial community analysis, the clustering method used the USEARCH7-uparse algorithm; the OTU sequence similarity was 0.97, the species taxonomy database was silva138/16 s_bacteria, and the classification confidence was 0.7, has been used by other researchers also [ 28 ]. Similarly, for the Fungal community analysis, the clustering method used the USEARCH7-uparse algorithm; OTU sequence similarity: 0.97; Confidence: 0.7; species classification database used was ITS;unite8.0/its_fungi [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Indole-3-acetamide from gut microbiota activated hepatic AhR and mediated the remission effect of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum P101 on alcoholic liver injury in mice

“…In previous studies, L. plantarum P101 has been demonstrated to prevent oxidative damage in mouse liver induced by CCl 4 or cyclophosphamide, as well as mitigate liver or sperm damage induced by lead in obese mice. 17–20 This study aimed to investigate the ability of L. plantarum P101 to alleviate alcohol-induced liver injury in mice and to further identify the key metabolites of the gut microbiome mediated by L. plantarum P101. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the influence of gut microbiota and their derivatives on the health and homeostasis of extraintestinal organs.…”