Enterotype-Specific Effect of Human Gut Microbiota on the Fermentation of Marine Algae Oligosaccharides: A Preliminary Proof-of-Concept In Vitro Study.

Tianyu Fu,Luning Zhou,Quancai Li,Guangli Yu,Bin Zhang,Qingsen Shang,Qing Zhao,Lin Pan,Chen Zhou,Zhiliang Fu

doi:10.3390/polym14040770

Abstract

The human gut microbiota plays a critical role in the metabolism of dietary carbohydrates. Previous studies have illustrated that marine algae oligosaccharides could be utilized and readily fermented by human gut microbiota. However, the human gut microbiota is classified into three different enterotypes, and how this may affect the fermentation processes of marine algae oligosaccharides has not been studied. Here, using in vitro fermentation and 16 S high-throughput sequencing techniques, we demonstrate that the human gut microbiota has an enterotype-specific effect on the fermentation outcomes of marine algae oligosaccharides. Notably, microbiota with a Bacteroides enterotype was more proficient at fermenting carrageenan oligosaccharides (KOS) as compared to that with a Prevotella enterotype and that with an Escherichia enterotype. Interestingly, the prebiotic effects of marine algae oligosaccharides were also found to be enterotype dependent. Altogether, our study demonstrates an enterotype-specific effect of human gut microbiota on the fermentation of marine algae oligosaccharides. However, due to the availability of the fecal samples, only one sample was used to represent each enterotype. Therefore, our research is a proof-of-concept study, and we anticipate that more detailed studies with larger sample sizes could be conducted to further explore the enterotype-specific prebiotic effects of marine oligosaccharides.

Highlights

The human gut microbiota, which is composed of more than 1000 bacterial species, is a highly complex microbial community [1,2,3]
We tested the enterotype of 30 healthy volunteers but, we only found one Escherichia enterotype microbiota
Preceding studies have found a similar effect of enterotype on the production of SCFAs when fermenting alginate and its derivatives using human gut microbiota [14]

Summary

Introduction

The human gut microbiota, which is composed of more than 1000 bacterial species, is a highly complex microbial community [1,2,3]. It is estimated that the human gut microbiota has a total gene set of about 3 million, which is about 150 times larger than that of the host genome [4,5]. Previous studies have indicated that marine algae oligosaccharides could be fermented and metabolized by human gut microbiota [9,10]. Han et al investigated the effect of marine algae oligosaccharides on the pig gut microbiota and found that they could stimulate the growth of beneficial microbes including Roseburia spp. and Faecalibacterium spp. The potential beneficial effects of marine algae oligosaccharides on the gut microbiota make them good candidates for the development of next-generation prebiotics [9,11]. Interesting results have been found for pigs, what effects the marine algae oligosaccharides have on the human gut microbiota have not been studied

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