Interactions between Food Compounds and Gut Microbiota

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 March 2025 | Viewed by 866

Special Issue Editor

School of Food and Bioengineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China
Interests: food microbiology; gut microbiota; gut–brain axis; epigenetics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The gut microbiota consists of trillions of microbes that impact the physiology of multiple host tissues. Food compounds are supposed to come into contact with gut microbiota, profoundly shaping its formation and dynamics, thereby exerting their health-modulatory effect. It remains a major challenging task to understand the precise relationship between specific food compounds, their metabolites, natural substances with health benefits, and the overall architecture of gut microbiota. It is crucial to consider the interplay between food compounds and gut microbiota within the context of host physiology, particularly in the presence of various forms of diseases. The aim of this Special Issue of Foods is to gather and display cutting-edge research on the relationship between food compounds (including natural compounds with health effects) and gut microbiota. This Special Issue welcomes original research articles and reviews on studies that illustrate the microbial changes in response to food digestion, elucidate the roles of microbiota in physiological outcomes, and investigate the associated mechanisms. Clear and concisely written manuscripts are highly desirable and appreciated.

Dr. Yi Xu
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • food compounds
  • gut microbiota
  • natural substances
  • firmicutes
  • proteobacteria
  • bacteroidetes

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 1945 KiB  
Article
A New Plant Active Polysaccharide from Nicotiana Improves the Lead-Led Impairment of Spatial Memory in Mice by Modulating the Gut Microbiota and IL-6
by Ruili Yang, Feng Zhu, Wanying Mo, Huailong Li, Dongliang Zhu, Zengyang He and Xiaojing Ma
Foods 2024, 13(19), 3177; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13193177 - 6 Oct 2024
Viewed by 698
Abstract
Active polysaccharides from plants are broadly applied in the food and health industry. The purpose of this study is to identify a new plant active polysaccharide and to investigate its role in modulating spatial memory. Ultrasonics and DEAE-52 chromatography were used to separate [...] Read more.
Active polysaccharides from plants are broadly applied in the food and health industry. The purpose of this study is to identify a new plant active polysaccharide and to investigate its role in modulating spatial memory. Ultrasonics and DEAE-52 chromatography were used to separate and purify the plant active polysaccharide (PAP). Mice were exposed to 100 ppm of lead acetate from birth to 7 weeks old to establish the memory impairment model. PAPs with concentrations of 200 or 400 ppm were fed to the subject mice each day after weaning in a spatiotemporally separated fashion. At the end of the intervention, mice were examined using the Morris water maze test, microbiome sequencing, cytokine profiling and protein analysis. The derived active polysaccharide was constituted by β-anomeric carbon, indicating a new form of PAP. The PAP significantly ameliorates the memory impairment caused by postnatal lead exposure, as evidenced by the preferred coverage of the test mouse in the hidden platform, demonstrating salient neuroregulatory activity. In terms of the gut microbiome in response to PAP treatment, it was found that the 400 ppm PAP reversed the gut dysbiosis, producing a comparable structure to the intact animals, represented by the relative abundance of Firmicutes and Muribaculum, Desulfovibrio, etc. For cytokines, the PAP reversed the plasma levels of IL-6, suggesting an anti-inflammatory trend in the context of proinflammation caused by lead invasion. By injecting an IL-6 antagonist, Tocilizumab, into the deficient mice, the spatial memory was significantly repaired, which demonstrates the central roles of IL-6 in mediating the positive effect of the PAP. Finally, a histone modification mark, H3K27me3, was found to be potent in responding to the signals conveyed by the PAP. The PAP could improve the memory deficits by remodeling the gut–brain axis centered at the microbiota and IL-6, which is regarded as an important cytokine-modulating brain activity. This is an intriguing instance linking neuromodulation with the active polysaccharide, shedding light on the innovative applications of plant polysaccharides due to the scarcity of similar phenotypic connections. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interactions between Food Compounds and Gut Microbiota)
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