The influence of the low-iron diet and the protective effect of Lactobacillus casei Zhang from the perspective of gut microbiota

Nutritional iron deficiency is a health problem faced by many developing countries. Now there are many schemes about the iron supplement, among them, the research about adjusting iron homeostasis by probiotics is worthy of attention. We decided to use metagenomics to reveal the effect of a low-iron diet on the structure and function of mice gut microbes, combined immune technology to investigate the inflammation of mice, as well as found the effect of Lactobacillus casei Zhang intervention on mice under the background of a low-iron diet. The results of the study showed that the LCZ can regulate the structure and function of the gut microbiota, demonstrates higher bacterial diversity, and up-regulates the metabolic pathways of B vitamins, in addition to the above effects, the LCZ group shows significantly lower levels of IL-18 pro-inflammatory factors compared to the low-iron diet froup. Our study demonstrated that LCZ has potential probiotic effects on the disorder of gut microbiota structure and function caused by a low-iron diet.