Abstract
Obesity is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation and intestinal dysbiosis. Ganoderma lucidum is a medicinal mushroom used in traditional Chinese medicine with putative anti-diabetic effects. Here, we show that a water extract of Ganoderma lucidum mycelium (WEGL) reduces body weight, inflammation and insulin resistance in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Our data indicate that WEGL not only reverses HFD-induced gut dysbiosis—as indicated by the decreased Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratios and endotoxin-bearing Proteobacteria levels—but also maintains intestinal barrier integrity and reduces metabolic endotoxemia. The anti-obesity and microbiota-modulating effects are transmissible via horizontal faeces transfer from WEGL-treated mice to HFD-fed mice. We further show that high molecular weight polysaccharides (>300 kDa) isolated from the WEGL extract produce similar anti-obesity and microbiota-modulating effects. Our results indicate that G. lucidum and its high molecular weight polysaccharides may be used as prebiotic agents to prevent gut dysbiosis and obesity-related metabolic disorders in obese individuals.
Highlights
Obesity is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation and intestinal dysbiosis
As monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) mRNA expression decreased in the liver and adipose tissues of high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice following treatment with water extract of Ganoderma lucidum mycelium (WEGL) (Supplementary Fig. 3a), we examined the numbers of macrophages recruited into hepatic and adipose tissues using flow cytometry analysis
Discussion previous studies have shown that G. lucidum lowers serum glucose and produces beneficial effects on type 2 diabetes mellitus in murine models[6,41,42], the effects of this fungus on the gut microbiota, inflammation and obesity had not been investigated
Summary
Obesity is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation and intestinal dysbiosis. Ganoderma lucidum is a medicinal mushroom used in traditional Chinese medicine with putative anti-diabetic effects. We show that a water extract of Ganoderma lucidum mycelium (WEGL) reduces body weight, inflammation and insulin resistance in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Our results indicate that G. lucidum and its high molecular weight polysaccharides may be used as prebiotic agents to prevent gut dysbiosis and obesity-related metabolic disorders in obese individuals. Other studies in obese animals suggest that obesity-induced gut dysbiosis caused by either environmental or genetic factors impairs intestinal integrity[18,19] This process leads to the release of the endotoxin lipopolysaccaride (LPS) from intestinal Gram-negative bacteria into the bloodstream[20], in turn, leading to metabolic inflammation and insulin resistance in obese mice[21] due to stimulation of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-mediated inflammation[22].
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