Changes in Mouse Gut Microbial Community in Response to the Different Types of Commonly Consumed Meat.

Zhimin Zhang,Rong Tang,Dapeng Li

doi:10.3390/microorganisms7030076

Abstract

The consumption of various meats prevalent throughout the world affects host health probably by associating with compositional shifts of gut microbiota. However, the responses of gut microbiota to different types of meat are not well understood. In this study, we explored the effects of cooked fish (white meat), and pork and beef (red meat) on gut microbiota and blood lipid metabolism in male C57BL/6 mice by comparing to those fed laboratory chow. Significant differences in microbial communities were observed among meat- and chow-fed mice. Compared with the chow group, the red and white meat groups obviously increased in abundance of Clostridium, and decreased in Prevotella abundance. The richness and diversity of gut microbiota were markedly decreased in the two red meat groups, with lower abundance of Oscillospira and higher abundance of Escherichia. Meanwhile, there were significant meat-related differences in blood lipid metabolites, with lower levels of high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, cholesterol, and in mice fed white, compared with red, meat. Lipopolysaccharide-binding protein was significantly lower in fish-fed mice. Our results indicate that different types of meat potentially influence gut microbial compositions and blood metabolic profiles, suggesting a need to focus on clinically relevant bacteria in gut microbiota associated with increasing meat consumption.

Highlights

The mammalian gastrointestinal tract is colonized by trillions of microorganisms that influence the health and immune responses of the host
A study in mice fed different types of protein reports that meat proteins lead to similar changes in the overall composition of gut bacteria, but different from changes resulting from intake of non-meat proteins [13]
The bacterial communities were dominated by three phyla, the most abundant was Bacteroidetes, with 48.15% to 83.11% of the sequences, followed by Firmicutes with 14.05% to 42.41%, and Proteobacteria with 2.19% to 7.85% in the chow-fed group

Summary

Introduction

The mammalian gastrointestinal tract is colonized by trillions of microorganisms that influence the health and immune responses of the host. Distinctive compositional patterns of human and other mammalian gut microbiota have been described, driven primarily by diet, lifestyle, and culture [1,2,3]. There is strong evidence that changes in fat, carbohydrate, and fiber in diets have far-reaching effects on gut microbiota [9,10,11] or even cause specific microbiota to become extinct [12]. Despite extensive investigations of gut microbiota of human and mammals spanning a range of diet-based controlled factors such as animal- or plant-based dietary intervention [11,15] or dietary styles [1,3], it remains unclear how gut microbiota compositions change in response to dietary supplementation of specific types of meat

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