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Short Term High Fat Diet Induces Obesity-Enhancing Changes in Mouse Gut Microbiota That are Partially Reversed by Cessation of the High Fat Diet

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Lipids

Abstract

The gut microbiota is proposed as a “metabolic organ” involved in energy utilization and is associated with obesity. Dietary intervention is one of the approaches for obesity management. Changes in dietary components have significant impacts on host metabolism and gut microbiota. In the present study, we examined the influence of dietary fat intervention on the modification of gut mucosa-associated microbiota profile along with body weight and metabolic parameter changes. Male C57BL/6J mice (6-week old) were fed a low fat diet (10% kcal fat) as a control or a high fat diet (HFD 60% kcal fat) for 7 weeks. In another group, mice were fed HFD for 5 weeks followed by low fat control diet for 2 weeks (HFD + Control). At 7 weeks, body weight gain, blood glucose and hepatic triacylglycerol levels of mice fed a HFD were significantly higher than that of the control group and the HFD + Control group. There were significant differences in the diversity and predicted functional properties of microbiota in the cecum and colon mucosa between the control group and the HFD group. HFD feeding reduced the ratio of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes, a microbiota pattern often associated with obesity. The HFD + Control diet partially restored the diversity and composition of microbiota in the cecum to the pattern observed in mice fed a control diet. These results suggest that short-term high fat diet withdrawal can restore metabolic changes and prevent excess body weight gain, however, long-term dietary intervention may be required to optimize the restoration of gut microbiota in mouse.

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Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

GLM:

General linear models

HFD:

High fat diet

KEGG:

Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes

OTU:

Operational taxonomic units

PCoA:

Principal coordinate analysis

PERMANOVA:

Permutational multivariate analysis of variance

PICRUSt:

Phylogenetic investigation of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states

QIIME:

Quantitative insights into microbial ecology

STAMP:

Statistical analysis of metagenomic profiles

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported, in part, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre and University of Manitoba Start-up Grant Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Integrative Biology, CCARM, St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre, 351 Tache Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, R2H 2A6, Canada

    Yue Shang, Lindsei K. Sarna, Yaw L. Siow & Karmin O

  2. Department of Animal Science, Winnipeg, Canada

    Yue Shang, Ehsan Khafipour, Hooman Derakhshani, Lindsei K. Sarna & Karmin O

  3. Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

    Ehsan Khafipour

  4. Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Connie W. Woo

  5. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Winnipeg, Canada

    Yaw L. Siow

  6. Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

    Yaw L. Siow & Karmin O

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  1. Yue Shang
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  2. Ehsan Khafipour
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  7. Karmin O
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Correspondence to Karmin O.

Electronic supplementary material

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11745_2017_4253_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Supplementary Table 1. Phylogenetic comparisons (level 3) based on KEGG pathways. Significant differences observed by phylogenetic comparisons of cecum and colon mucosa-associated microbiota using KEGG orthology reference pathways (on level 3) between mice fed different types of diets (n = 4 per group) (DOCX 60 kb)

11745_2017_4253_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx

Taxonomy analysis. Raw count data standardized to percentage relative abundance per phylum, class, order, family, and genus of the cecal and colonic microorganisms in each sample (XLSX 135 kb)

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Shang, Y., Khafipour, E., Derakhshani, H. et al. Short Term High Fat Diet Induces Obesity-Enhancing Changes in Mouse Gut Microbiota That are Partially Reversed by Cessation of the High Fat Diet. Lipids 52, 499–511 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-017-4253-2

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