In vitro screening of butyrate boosting dietary fibres to stimulate bacterial butyrate production in the intestine of ulcerative colitis patients

Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) such as butyrate are considered beneficial for human health and are produced by intestinal bacteria during the fermentation of dietary fibres (DF). Intestinal butyrate production capacity is determined by microbiota composition and DF intake and is found to be compromised in active ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. Recently, sustained remission induced by faecal microbiota transplantation was associated with increased butyrate production capacity in UC patients with relatively low abundance of Bacteroidetes during active disease. We hypothesized that in UC patients butyrate production could be boosted by specific DF intake, and that intervention efficacy would be dependent on faecal Bacteroidetes levels. We carried out in vitro incubations in batch cultures with microbiota from UC patients as inoculum. Cultures were supplemented with four butyrate boosting DF prototypes (A: kiwi powder + resistant starch, B: kiwi power + resistant starch (different proportion with A), C: acacia gum + guar gum + resistant starch, D: acacia gum + kiwi powder + guar gum). Gas production, SCFA concentrations, and microbial composition were determined at 0, 24, and 48 h.