Abstract
Oligosaccharides (OS) are commonly added to infant formulas, however, their physiological impact, particularly on adult health programming, is poorly described. In adult animals, OS modify microbiota and stimulate colonic fermentation and enteroendocrine cell (EEC) activity. Since neonatal changes in microbiota and/or EEC density could be long-lasting and EEC-derived peptides do regulate short-term food intake, we hypothesized that neonatal OS consumption could modulate early EECs, with possible consequences for adult eating behavior. Suckling rats were supplemented with fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), beta-galacto-oligosaccharides/inulin (GOS/In) mix, alpha-galacto-oligosaccharides (αGOS) at 3.2 g/kg, or a control solution (CTL) between postnatal day (PND) 5 and 14/15. Pups were either sacrificed at PND14/15 or weaned at PND21 onto standard chow. The effects on both microbiota and EEC were characterized at PND14/15, and eating behavior at adulthood. Very early OS supplementation drastically impacted the intestinal environment, endocrine lineage proliferation/differentiation particularly in the ileum, and the density of GLP-1 cells and production of satiety-related peptides (GLP-1 and PYY) in the neonatal period. However, it failed to induce any significant lasting changes on intestinal microbiota, enteropeptide secretion or eating behavior later in life. Overall, the results did not demonstrate any OS programming effect on satiety peptides secreted by L-cells or on food consumption, an observation which is a reassuring outlook from a human perspective.
Highlights
Preventing unhealthy feeding behavior is highly desirable since deleterious eating habits are associated with health problems, including a higher risk of overweight and obesity [1]
Central regulation of appetite is mediated by peripheral inputs generated by stomach distension, through signals from the gut epithelium when it senses the availability of nutrients, such as satiety-regulating peptides synthetized and released by enteroendocrine cells (EECs), as well as by long-term energy signals released by adipose tissue and cerebral inputs generated by hedonics and rewards circuits [2,3]
An increased density of ileal L-EECs and their secreted anorectic hormones, GLP-1 and PYY, were observed and unexpectedly the expression of transcription factors beyond the stage of secretory cell engagement (Atoh1) was Overall, these results indicate that OS supplementation profoundly modulates neonatal microbiota in terms of both its composition and its fermentative activity, with repercussions in the cecocolon and, as exemplified with FOS, in the ileum
Summary
Preventing unhealthy feeding behavior is highly desirable since deleterious eating habits are associated with health problems, including a higher risk of overweight and obesity [1]. In addition to the evident progress in understanding these interconnections, recent advances include two major findings: first, eating behavior may be programmed very early in life, and second, it could be regulated by intestinal microbiota. Among the environmental stressors that may have an effect, it is suggested in both animal and human studies that perinatal nutrition could program the appetite (see [5,6] for reviews). Controversial results have been observed concerning the influence of prenatal nutrition on later eating behavior (see [11] for review), some observational evidence suggests that early nutrition/growth affects appetite regulation [12,13,14] and food preference programming, as demonstrated after repeated exposure to new flavors [15]
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