Chinese herbal polysaccharides affect the gut microbiota of mice

arabinogalactan (AG) is a ubiquitous feature of plant polysaccharide preferred by gut microbiota. Since the decorations of structures are variable, the interaction between AG and HGM is vague. We hypothesize gut microbiota possesses the ability to degrade AG and be changed by it. Here, an AG-like polysaccharide TF112 (Mw 54.7 kDa) was purified. As speculated, we demonstrated TF112 could be degraded into monosaccharides and oligosaccharides by Bacteroides sp. Further, we showed that TF112 changed the composition of gut microbiota of mice and increased the content of vitamins in the feces of mice. Overall, our research provides new insight to investigate the cross-talk between AG and HGM.