Effects of microbiota-directed supplementary foods on gut microbiota in fecal colonized mice of healthy infants

Abstract

The infant gut microbiota is prone to change during weaning period. Gut microbiota is closely related to infant health and development. In this study, microbiota infantized mice were used to evaluated the effects of three microbiota-directed supplementary foods on mice, namely, ready-to-use-supplementary-food-1 (RUSF-1), RUSF-2 and RUSF-3. These three groups of supplementary foods have demonstrated positive effects on the structure of gut microbiota in vitro fermentation experiments. The inflammatory cytokine results of inflammatory cytokine showed that the levels of IL-2 and IL-10 in the RUSF-2 group were higher. In addition, the gene expression of tight junction proteins is superior than the other groups. Furthermore, the RUSF-2 group showed higher levels of propionate and butyrate and higher relative abundance of short-chain fatty acid-related microorganisms, Faecalibaculum and Bifidobacterium. Therefore, our research results show that the supplementary food of the RUSF-2 group is most beneficial to the infant body and gut microbiota.

Keywords

• Microbiota-directed supplementary food
• Fecal bacteria transplant
• Immunity
• Short-chain fatty acids
• Gut microbiota