Abstract
A study was conducted to determine the effects of a diet supplemented with fruits and vegetables (FV) on the host whole blood cell (WBC) transcriptome and the composition and function of the intestinal microbiome. Nine six-week-old pigs were fed a pig grower diet alone or supplemented with lyophilized FV equivalent to half the daily recommended amount prescribed for humans by the Dietary Guideline for Americans (DGA) for two weeks. Host transcriptome changes in the WBC were evaluated by RNA sequencing. Isolated DNA from the fecal microbiome was used for 16S rDNA taxonomic analysis and prediction of metabolomic function. Feeding an FV-supplemented diet to pigs induced differential expression of several genes associated with an increase in B-cell development and differentiation and the regulation of cellular movement, inflammatory response, and cell-to-cell signaling. Linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) in fecal microbiome samples showed differential increases in genera from Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae families within the order Clostridiales and Erysipelotrichaceae family with a predicted reduction in rgpE-glucosyltransferase protein associated with lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis in pigs fed the FV-supplemented diet. These results suggest that feeding an FV-supplemented diet for two weeks modulated markers of cellular inflammatory and immune function in the WBC transcriptome and the composition of the intestinal microbiome by increasing the abundance of bacterial taxa that have been associated with improved intestinal health.
Highlights
RNA derived from paired whole blood cell (WBC) collections at baseline and two weeks post-intervention were processed for pigs from the control (n = 4) and fruits and vegetables (FV) (n = 3)-supplemented dietary groups as independent replicates for mapping reads [41]
Principal component analysis (PCA) using the NR or WG dataset showed the complete separation of pigs from the FV-supplemented dietary group and partial separation of pigs from the control group when paired samples collected at two weeks post-intervention and baseline were compared
This study showed that daily consumption of a diet containing 1.25 cups of fruit and 1.75 cups of vegetables for two weeks positively affected the composition of the fecal microbiome (FM) of pigs by promoting the abundance of several genera within the Erysipelotrichaceae family, which have been previously correlated with dietary fiber consumption [49,50], adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) [51], higher systemic tocopherol concentrations as a marker of FV consumption in humans [3], and negatively correlated with inflammatory markers in weaned pigs [52]
Summary
Short-term feeding of diets composed largely of animal-based or plant-based products to humans can rapidly shift the intestinal microbial composition and function [1]. A recent study of >1000 subjects showed that feeding a diverse healthy and plant-based diet to humans stratified the intestinal microbiome into organisms associated with markers of improved cardiovascular and postprandial glucose metabolic function [2]. Two independent cross-sectional data analyses of whole diets fed to American and Finnish populations, parsing out consumption of FV, showed an association between higher gut bacterial diversity and favorable microbiome composition with increasing systemic levels of total carotenoids and a healthy food choice index, respectively, supporting evidence that enhanced FV consumption improved host health through changes in the intestinal microbiome [3,4]. Further evidence has linked the impact of FV consumption on host–
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