Abstract
There is an interaction and bidirectional selection between dietary intake and gut microbiota due to the different efficiency of nutrients in the gut. The nutritional composition of germ-free (GF) diets differs significantly from specific pathogen-free (SPF) diets. There is, however, no data revealing how SPF animals from the same microbial background respond to them and if they affect the host. We examined the growth of SPF mice on the GF diet and found that it reduced body weight, intestinal length and intestinal morphology. Interestingly, the GF diet increased the level of pro-inflammatory bacteria in the gut of SPF mice, including Proteobacteria, Burkholderiaceae, Alloprevotella and Parasutterella. Furthermore, GF diets caused significant increases in malondialdehyde (MDA), IL-1β, IL-6, and D-lactate levels in the serum of SPF mice and significantly altered their serum metabolic profile, especially amino acid metabolism. In conclusion, GF diets are not suitable for the growth and development of SPF mice. These findings, based on the role of gut microbiota in diet selection, provide new insights into the scientific and rational use of experimental animal diets.
Highlights
Diets are composed of different types and levels of nutrients, which act differently and can cause considerable changes in the organism
The results revealed that lymphocyte count (LYM)% and red cell distribution width (RDW) were significantly lower and monocyte count (MON), MON% and neutrophil count (NEU)% were significantly higher in the GF
We added more nutritional ingredients to the GF diet, we found that the nutrient content of the GF diet was lower than that of the specific pathogen-free (SPF) diet
Summary
Diets are composed of different types and levels of nutrients, which act differently and can cause considerable changes in the organism. High dietary fat can disrupt the intestinal barrier and lead to inflammation, which is associated with the development of many diseases such as metabolic disorders and cancer [2,3,4]. The selection of diets with different nutrient contents and types in animal experiments may lead to bias in the baseline data of the experimental animals themselves due to different nutrient supply and animal needs, affecting the scientificity and rationality of the experimental data [7, 8]. The gut microbiota is the largest symbiont community in the body and is considered as an additional organ which closely related to immunity, nutrient absorption and metabolism and other
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