Effects of Prevotella copri on insulin, gut microbiota and bile acids

ABSTRACT

Obesity is becoming a major global health problem in children that can cause diseases such as type 2 diabetes and metabolic disorders, which are closely related to the gut microbiota. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, a significant positive correlation was observed between Prevotella copri (P. copri) and obesity in children (p = 0.003). Next, the effect of P. copri on obesity was explored by using fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) experiment. Transplantation of P. copri. increased serum levels of fasting blood glucose (p < 0.01), insulin (p < 0.01) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) (p < 0.05) in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obese mice, but not in normal mice. Characterization of the gut microbiota indicated that P. copri reduced the relative abundance of the Akkermansia genus in mice (p < 0.01). Further analysis on bile acids (BAs) revealed that P. copri increased the primary BAs and ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) in HFD-induced mice (p < 0.05). This study demonstrated for the first time that P. copri has a significant positive correlation with obesity in children, and can increase fasting blood glucose and insulin levels in HFD-fed obese mice, which are related to the abundance of Akkermansia genus and bile acids.

KEYWORDS:

• Obesity
• prevotella copri
• insulin
• gut microbiota
• bile acids

Acknowledgments

We thank Meiji Biotechnology for their assistance in microbial sequencing and Mr. Zhang Yulong for providing the P. copri.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Jiatai Gong, Shusong Wu and Lijun Peng were the primary investigators of this study. Qianjin Zhang, Ruizhi Hu, Xizi Yang and Chengkun Fang participated in the animal experiments. Long Wang, Mingkun Shi, Liping Yao and Jing Lv participated in sample analysis and statistical data analysis. Hognfu Zhang, De-Xing Hou, Yulong Yin and Jianhua He revised the manuscript. Shusong Wu and Lijun Peng designed the study and wrote the manuscript as corresponding authors.

Consent for publication

Permission to publish this article has been obtained from all experimental participants, and copies of the consent form can be viewed at any stage.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Animal protocols were performed in accordance with the guidelines of the Animal Care and Use Committee of Hunan Agricultural University (Permission No. 2021–055). The children’s study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Hunan Children’s Hospital (Permission No. HCHLL-2018-30). All child guardians provided informed consent and signed an informed consent form.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated in the current study are available in the NCBI repository (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA992675/)^{.[PRJNA992675]}

The datasets generated in the current study are available in the NCBI repository (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/?term=PRJNA992648^{.[PRJNA992648]}

The datasets supporting the conclusions of this study are included within the article and its additional files.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19490976.2024.2340487

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32102578, U22A20515), National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFD1302300, 2023YFD1301200), Changsha Natural Science Foundation (kq2208092), and the Hunan Provincial Health Commission (C202306017634).