Combining fecal microbiome and metabolomics to reveal the disturbance of gut microbiota in liver injury and the therapeutic mechanism of shaoyao gancao decoction

作者：Jingwei Li, Min Zhao, Jianming Li, Miao Wang, Chunjie Zhao · 发表于：Frontiers in Pharmacology · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.3389/fphar.2022.911356 · 被引用次数：27 · 研究领域：Gut microbiota and health、Diet and metabolism studies、Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Studies

Chemical liver injury is closely related to gut microbiota and its metabolites. In this study, we combined 16S rRNA gene sequencing, 1 H NMR-based fecal metabolomics and GC-MS to evaluate the changes in gut microbiota, fecal metabolites and Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in CCl 4 -induced liver injury in Sprague-Dawley rats, and the therapeutic effect of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction (SGD). The results showed that CCl 4 -induced liver injury overexpressed CYP2E1, enhanced oxidative stress, decreased antioxidant enzymes (SOD, GSH), increased peroxidative products MDA and inflammatory responses (IL-6, TNF-α), which were ameliorated by SGD treatment. H&E staining showed that SGD could alleviate liver tissue lesions, which was confirmed by the recovered liver index, ALT and AST. Correlation network analysis indicated that liver injury led to a decrease in microbiota correlation, while SGD helped restore it. In addition, fecal metabolomic confirmed the PICRUSt results that liver injury caused disturbances in amino acid metabolism, which were modulated by SGD. Spearman’s analysis showed that liver injury disrupted ammonia transport, urea cycle, intestinal barrier and energy metabolism. Moreover, the levels of SCFAs were also decreased, and the abundance of Lachnoclostridium, Blautia, Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, UCG-005 and Turicibacter associated with SCFAs were altered. However, all this can be alleviated by SGD. More importantly, pseudo germ-free rats demonstrated that the...