Abstract
Metabolic syndrome is a growing public health concern. Efforts at searching for links with the gut microbiome have revealed that propionate is a major fermentation product in the gut with several health benefits toward energy homeostasis. For instance, propionate stimulates satiety-inducing hormones, leading to lower energy intake and reducing weight gain and associated risk factors. In (disease) scenarios where microbial dysbiosis is apparent, gut microbial production of propionate may be decreased. Here, we investigated the effect of a propionogenic bacterial consortium composed of Lactobacillus plantarum, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Ruminococcus obeum, Coprococcus catus, Bacteroides vulgatus, Akkermansia muciniphila, and Veillonella parvula for its potential to restore in vitro propionate concentrations upon antibiotic-induced microbial dysbiosis. Using the mucosal simulator of the human intestinal microbial ecosystem (M-SHIME), we challenged the simulated colon microbiome with clindamycin. Addition of the propionogenic consortium resulted in successful colonization and subsequent restoration of propionate levels, while a positive effect on the mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) was observed in comparison with the controls. Our results support the development and application of next generation probiotics, which are composed of multiple bacterial strains with diverse functionality and phylogenetic background.
Highlights
The human gut plays a major role in nutrition, metabolism, pathogen resistance, and regulation of immune response (Dethlefsen et al, 2008; Turroni et al, 2012)
In the single donor experiments, we found that one single dose of the propionate-producing consortium (PPC) did not promote functional recovery on either of the donors (Supplementary Figures 1, 2), whereas three consecutive doses of the consortium triggered a significant increase in propionate production only in donor 1 (14.84 ± 1.06 mM; P < 0.05, Supplementary Figure 1)
short chain fatty acids (SCFA) analysis from the luminal Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem (SHIME) samples revealed a significant drop in bacterial metabolic activity after clindamycininduced dysbiosis
Summary
The human gut plays a major role in nutrition, metabolism, pathogen resistance, and regulation of immune response (Dethlefsen et al, 2008; Turroni et al, 2012). Acetate is absorbed and transported to the liver for cholesterol and fatty acid synthesis in the host, playing major role in enhancing ileal motility (Hosseini et al, 2011), while butyrate is the key energy source for colonocytes. Metabolic syndrome is defined as a cluster of different biological factors characterized by obesity, dyslipidemia, and type 2 diabetes (Halcox and Quyyumi, 2005; Alberti et al, 2009; Moore et al, 2017; Nolan et al, 2017) This syndrome is linked to different comorbidities like cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver, arthritis, chronic kidney disease, and several types of cancers (Halcox and Quyyumi, 2005; Dugas et al, 2016; Moore et al, 2017). Propionate is involved in activation of intestinal gluconeogenesis (IGN), regulating food intake and enhancing insulin sensitivity (Li et al, 2017)
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