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. 2020 Nov 6;12(11):3410.
doi: 10.3390/nu12113410.

Exercise and/or Genistein Treatment Impact Gut Microbiota and Inflammation after 12 Weeks on a High-Fat, High-Sugar Diet in C57BL/6 Mice

Carmen P Ortega-Santos  1 , Layla Al-Nakkash  2 , Corrie M Whisner  1
Affiliations

Exercise and/or Genistein Treatment Impact Gut Microbiota and Inflammation after 12 Weeks on a High-Fat, High-Sugar Diet in C57BL/6 Mice

Carmen P Ortega-Santos et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Genistein (Gen) and exercise (Exe) have been postulated as potential strategies to ameliorate obesity, inflammation, and gut microbiota (GM) with promising results. However, the impact of the combination of both Exe and Gen is yet to be investigated. We aimed to analyze the impacts of Exe, Gen, and their combined effects on GM and inflammation in mice after a 12-week high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD). Eighty-three C57BL/6 mice were randomized to control, HFD, HFD + Exe, HFD + Gen, or HFD + Exe + Gen. The V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was analyzed with Illumina MiSeq. Serum samples were used to analyze interleukin (Il)-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-alpha). The HFD + Exe and HFD + Exe + Gen treatments resulted in significantly greater microbial richness compared to HFD. All the treatments had a significantly different impact on the GM community structure. Ruminococcus was significantly more abundant after the HFD + Exe + Gen treatment when compared to all the other HFD groups. Exe + Gen resulted in serum Il-6 concentrations similar to that of controls. TNF-alpha concentrations did not differ by treatment. Overall, Exe had a positive impact on microbial richness, and Ruminococcus might be the driving bacteria for the GM structure differences. Exe + Gen may be an effective treatment for preventing HFD-induced inflammation.

Keywords: Western diet; exercise; genistein; gut microbiota; high-fat diet; inflammation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Microbial community richness (Observed Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs)) comparisons in C57BL/6 mice (n = 83) after treatment with control; high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD); HFD + Exercise (HFD + Exe); HFD + Genistein (HFD + Gen); and HFD + Exe + Gen. * denotes significant group differences according to Kruskal–Wallis (p < 0.05) tests after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Microbial community richness (Faith’s Phylogenetic Diversity) comparisons in C57BL/6 mice (n = 83) after treatment with control; high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD); HFD + Exercise (HFD + Exe); HFD + Genistein (HFD + Gen); and HFD + Exe + Gen. * denotes significant group differences according to Kruskal–Wallis test (p < 0.05) after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Beta-diversity PCoA plot of between-group distances using Jaccard distance matrix values. Treatment groups are as follows: control, red; high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD), blue; HFD + genistein (Gen), purple; HFD + exercise (Exe), orange; HFD + Exe + Gen, green. Significant group differences (p < 0.05) after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons were observed for all pairwise treatment comparisons.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Beta diversity PCoA plot of between-group distances using Bray–Curtis distance matrix values. Treatment groups are as follows: control, red; high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD), blue; HFD + genistein (Gen), purple; HFD + exercise (Exe), orange; HFD + Exe + Gen, green. Significant group differences (p < 0.05) after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons were observed for all pairwise treatment comparisons.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Beta diversity PCoA plot of between-group distances using unweighted UniFrac distance matrix values. Treatment groups are as follows: control, red; high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD), blue; HFD + genistein (Gen), purple; HFD + exercise (Exe), orange; HFD + Exe + Gen, green. Significant group differences (p < 0.05) after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons were observed for all pairwise treatment comparisons.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Beta diversity PCoA plot of between-group distances using weighted UniFrac distance matrix values. Treatment groups are as follows: control, red; high-fat, high-sugar diet (HFD), blue; HFD + genistein (Gen), purple; HFD + exercise (Exe), orange; HFD + Exe + Gen, green. Significant group differences (p < 0.05) after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons were observed for all pairwise treatment comparisons.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Fecal (A) total bile acid concentration (nmol/g); (B) total secondary bile acid + bile salt concentration (nmol/g); (C) total secondary bile acids (nmol/g); (D) deoxycholic acid concentration (nmol/g) in feces. Significant group differences (p < 0.05) were assessed by one-way ANOVA with multiple Dunnett’s comparisons. * denotes significant difference (p < 0.05). HFD, high-fat, high-sugar diet; Exe, exercise; Gen, genistein; F, female; M, male.
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