The prebiotic fructooligosaccharide modulates metabolic dynamics and IgA production in the human gut ecosystem. human gut metagenome

Fructooligosaccharide (FOS), a prebiotic well known for its health-promoting properties, can improve the human gut ecosystem most likely through changes in its microbial composition. However, the detailed mechanism(s) of action of FOS in the modulation of the gut ecosystem remains obscure. Traditional methods of profiling microbes and metabolites could barely show any significant features due to the existence of large interindividual differences, but our novel microbe-metabolite correlation approach, combined with fecal IgA measurements, has revealed that the induction of mucosal IgA by FOS supplementation correlated with the presence of specific bacteria. Furthermore, the metabolic dynamics of butyrate, L-phenylalanine, L-lysine and tyramine were positively correlated with the dynamics of these bacteria and IgA production, whereas p-cresol was negatively correlated. Taken together, our focused intraindividual analysis with omics approaches is a powerful strategy for uncovering the gut molecular network and could provide a new vista for understanding the human gut ecosystem.