Metabolomics insights into the modulatory effects of long-term compound polysaccharide intake in high-fat diet-induced obese rats

Abstract

BackgroundPolysaccharides can alleviate obesity in mammals; however, studies on mechanism of this alleviation are limited. A few studies have indicated that polysaccharides improve obesity by regulating the metabolism of the body. Therefore, a metabolomics approach, consisting of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and a multivariate statistical technique, was applied to explore the mechanism of the protective effects of lentinan and Flos Lonicera polysaccharides (LF) on high-fat diet (HFD) induced obesity.MethodsIn this study, rats were randomly divided into three groups: control diet (CD), HFD, and HFD supplemented with a mixture of lentinan and Flos Lonicera polysaccharide. Histopathological and clinical biochemical assessments were also conducted. A combination of a NMR metabolomics study and a multivariable statistical analysis method to distinguish urinary and fecal metabolites was applied.ResultsSignificant obesity symptoms appeared in HFD rats (for example, significant weight gain, epididymal adipose accumulation and lipid deposition in hepatocytes), which was attenuated in the LF group. Additionally, the HFD induced a reduction of choline, citrate, pyruvate and glycerol and increased the levels of trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) and taurine. Of note, these metabolic disorders were reversed by LF intervention mainly through pathways of energy metabolism, choline metabolism and gut microbiota metabolism.ConclusionsLF supplementation had a re-balancing effect on the disturbed metabolic pathways in the obese body. The results of this study validate the therapeutic effect of the compound polysaccharide--LF in obesity and described the biochemical and metabolic mechanisms involved.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12986-018-0246-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

An Integrated Fecal Microbiome and Metabolomics in T2DM Rats Reveal Antidiabetes Effects from Host-Microbial Metabolic Axis of EtOAc Extract from Sophora flavescens

“…In the present study, MetaboAnalyst was used to link obtained metabolomics data with potential modulation of biochemical pathways [24]. Based on 61 identified biomarkers, the changes in metabolic pathways of T2DM and SFE treatment were filtered out, and 8 metabolic pathways (Figure 9(a)) were selected as the most important metabolic pathways (p < 0:05, impact > 0:1) that were related to metabolic disturbances [25]. These included linoleic acid metabolism; valine, leucine, and isoleucine biosynthesis; phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan biosynthesis; beta-alanine metabolism; phenylalanine metabolism; sphingolipid metabolism; tryptophan metabolism; and arginine and proline metabolism.…”

“…The decrease of Lactobacillus and the increase of discriminative microbiota (Escherichia coli) in the model group was consistent with the decrease of these two metabolites. KP also plays an important role in tryptophan metabolism, and excessive expression of KP was associated with insulin resistance (IR), which can lead to obesity and T2DM [25,35]; 4-(2-aminophenyl)-2,4-dioxobutanoic acid and kynurenic acid…”

The Human Microbiota and Obesity: A Literature Systematic Review of In Vivo Models and Technical Approaches

“…Despite these differences and other disadvantages such as elevated costs and more difficultly in their manipulation compared to mice, rats are good models for specific pathogen-free (SPF) experiments because their gut microbiome can be established under conventional or SPF conditions after the introduction of certain controlled environments [33]: They have been used to analyze the influence of antimicrobial treatment on intestinal microbiota [34], to generate “human microbiota-associated” animals [35], to test the effect of certain probiotics [36], and to evaluate the relation of microbiota characteristics in obesity [37]. On the other hand, host–gut microbial interactions may vary between different rat strains, which represents a difficulty for their use in studies and therefore the impact of diet on the makeup of gut microbiota differs slightly between studies [38].…”

Changes in urinary metabolome related to body fat involve intermediates of choline processing by gut microbiota

“…High-fat diet (HFD) mouse models have been a valuable tool to investigate pathogenic mechanisms and to evaluate prospective therapies. In particular, a number of studies using these models have focused on changes in metabolome and specific metabolic pathways affected in obesity [3, 4, 5]. These efforts include a more recent focus on the changes in metabolites derived from gut microbiota [3, 4, 6, 7, 8].…”

“…In particular, metabolites derived from dietary choline processing by bacteria in the gut appear to be affected in obesity. However, the findings have been controversial exhibiting either opposing trends or absence of changes associated with high-fat diet [3, 4, 6, 7, 8]. Moreover, the relation of these metabolic changes to disease phenotype such as total body fat is not fully understood due, in part, to the short duration of the HFD regiments (<15 weeks) and, as a result, relatively small increases in body weight [3, 4, 6, 7, 8].…”