Multi-omics profiling of gut microbiome under a novel synbiotic treatment in high-fat diet-induced obese mice

The gut microbiota is an important influencing factor of metabolic health. Although dietary intervention with probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics can be effective means of regulating obesity and associated comorbidities, underlying shifts in gut microbial communities, especially at the functional level, have not been characterized in great detail. In this study, we investigated the effects of synbiotics on high-fat diet (HFD)-induced metabolic disorders, and deeply profiled microbiota signatures at both phylogenetic and functional levels. Synbiotics significantly reversed alterations of microbial populations in response to HFD at the levels of richness and specific taxa, including Erysipelotrichaceae, Faecalibaculum and Alistipes species. Short-chain fatty acid and bile acid profiles revealed that all interventions significantly increased cecal levels of acetate, propionate, and butyrate towards those observed in control mice, while pre/synbiotics were most efficient regarding the restoration of bile acid pools. Metaproteome analysis showed that synbiotics significantly reversed eleven pathways involved in carbohydrate, amino acid, and energy metabolisms, replication and repair, etc. Altogether, the results suggest that dietary intervention with our novel synbiotics alleviated HFD-induced weight gain with associated re-adjustment of HFD-induced disturbances in the gut microbial ecosystem.