Project description:Pancreatic cancer is the 3rd most prevalent cause of cancer related deaths in United states alone, with over 55000 patients being diagnosed in 2019 alone and nearly as many succumbing to it. Late detection, lack of effective therapy and poor understanding of pancreatic cancer systemically contributes to its poor survival statistics. Obesity and high caloric intake linked co-morbidities like type 2 diabetes (T2D) have been attributed as being risk factors for a number of cancers including pancreatic cancer. Studies on gut microbiome has shown that lifestyle factors as well as diet has a huge effect on the microbial flora of the gut. Further, modulation of gut microbiome has been seen to contribute to effects of intensive insulin therapy in mice on high fat diet. In another study, abnormal gut microbiota was reported to contribute to development of diabetes in Db/Db mice. Recent studies indicate that microbiome and microbial dysbiosis plays a role in not only the onset of disease but also in its outcome. In colorectal cancer, Fusobacterium has been reported to promote therapy resistance. Certain intra-tumoral bacteria have also been shown to elicit chemo-resistance by metabolizing anti-cancerous agents. In pancreatic cancer, studies on altered gut microbiome have been relatively recent. Microbial dysbiosis has been observed to be associated with pancreatic tumor progression. Modulation of microbiome has been shown to affect response to anti-PD1 therapy in this disease as well. However, most of the studies in pancreatic cancer and microbiome have remained focused om immune modulation. In the current study, we observed that in a T2D mouse model, the microbiome changed significantly as the hyperglycemia developed in these animals. Our results further showed that, tumors implanted in the T2D mice responded poorly to Gemcitabine/Paclitaxel (Gem/Pac) standard of care compared to those in the control group. A metabolomic reconstruction of the WGS of the gut microbiota further revealed that an enrichment of bacterial population involved in drug metabolism in the T2D group.
Project description:Germfree (GF) mice have been used as a model to study the contribution of the intestinal microbiota to metabolic energy balance of the host. Despite a wealth of knowledge accumulated since the 1940’s, the response of GF mice to a high fat diet is largely unknown. In the present study, we compared the metabolic consequences of a high fat (HF) diet on GF and conventional (Conv) C57BL/6J mice. As expected, Conv mice developed obesity and glucose intolerance with a HF diet. In contrast, GF mice remained lean and resisted the HF diet-induced insulin resistance. The anti-obesity phenotype of GF/HF mice was accompanied by reduced caloric intake, diminished food efficiency, and excessive fecal lipid excretion contributed to the reduced food efficiency. In addition, HF diet-induced hypercholesterolemia was ameliorated, which was partially due to an increase in fecal cholesterol excretion. However, hepatic cholesterols were increased in GF/HF mice. Elevated nuclear SREBP2 proteins and the up-regulation of cholesterol biosynthesis genes support the increased liver cholesterol biosynthesis in GF/HF mice. The resistance to HF diet-induced metabolic abnormalities in GF mice was also associated with a reduced immune response, indicated by low plasma pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory markers. These data suggest that the gut microbiota of Conv mice contributes to HF diet-induced obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and hepatic steatosis in mice. Thus, results of the present study describe the metabolic responses of GF mice to a HF diet and further our understandings of the relationship between the gut microbiota and the host. Germfree and conventional C57BL/6J mice were fed with a high fat diet for 11 weeks. Then, all mice were sacrified under 10-h food deprevation, and liver samples of germfree (n=14) and conventional (n=16) were examined.
Project description:We studied the effect of dietary fat type, varying in polyunsaturated/saturated fatty acid ratio's (P/S) on development of metabolic syndrome. C57Bl/6J mice were fed purified high-fat diets (45E% fat) containing palm oil (HF-PO; P/S 0.4), olive oil (HF-OO; P/S 1.1) or safflower oil (HF-SO; P/S 7.8) for 8 weeks. A low-fat palm oil diet (LF-PO; 10E% fat) was used as a reference. Additionally, we analyzed diet-induced changes in gut microbiota composition and mucosal gene expression. The HF-PO diet induced a higher body weight gain and liver triglyceride content compared to the HF-OO, HF-SO or LF-PO diet. In the intestine, the HF-PO diet reduced microbial diversity and increased the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio. Although this fits a typical obesity profile, our data clearly indicate that an overflow of the HF-PO diet to the distal intestine, rather than obesity itself, is the main trigger for these gut microbiota changes. A HF-PO diet-induced elevation of lipid metabolism-related genes in the distal small intestine confirmed the overflow of palm oil to the distal intestine. Some of these lipid metabolism-related genes were previously already associated with the metabolic syndrome. In conclusion, our data indicate that saturated fat (HF-PO) has a more stimulatory effect on weight gain and hepatic lipid accumulation than unsaturated fat (HF-OO and HF-SO). The overflow of fat to the distal intestine on the HF-PO diet induced changes in gut microbiota composition and mucosal gene expression. We speculate that both are directly or indirectly contributive to the saturated fat-induced development of obesity and hepatic steatosis. Keywords: Diet intervention study Nine-week-old C57Bl/6J mice were fed a low-fat diet (LF-PO) and three different types of high-fat diet, based on palm oil (HF-PO; P/S1.0), olive oil (HF-OO; P/S4.6) and safflower oil (HF-SO; P/S10.1) for 8 weeks. Body weight was recorded weekly and after 7 weeks of diet intervention an oral glucose tolerance test was performed. After 2 weeks of diet intervention, 6 mice per high-fat diet group were anaesthetized with a mixture of isofluorane (1.5%), nitrous oxide (70%) and oxygen (30%) and the small intestines were excised. Adhering fat and pancreatic tissue were carefully removed. The small intestines were divided in three equal parts along the proximal to distal axis (SI 1, SI 2 and SI 3) and microarray analysis was performed on mucosal scrapings.
Project description:The C57BL/6J mouse model develops obesity and pre-diabetes when fed a high-fat diet. In this experiment, DNA methylation was assessed globally at specific CpG sites in liver tissue from mice receiving high-fat diet (45E% from fat) for 13 weeks (Control) or high-fat diet supplemented with 20% (w/w) of freeze-dried lingonberries (n=4). Our findings show that lingonberries prevent development of high-fat induced obesity, hepatic steatosis and low-grade inflammation, and the DNA was hypermethylated in mice receiving lingonberries compared to control. Genome wide hepatic DNA methylation comparison between mice fed high-fat diet with or without a lingonberry supplement (n=4/group).
Project description:We reported the variation in the gut microbiome diversity under the influence of Intrauterine Growth restriction or Exposure to High Fat High fructose diet followed by Intrauterine growth restriction.
Project description:To profile the expression of circulating miRNAs in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity (DIO) with subsequent weight-reduction with low-fat diet (LFD), eighteen C57BL/6 male mice were grouped into three subgroups as: (1) Control: the mice fed with the standard AIN-76A (fat: 11.5 kcal%) diet for 12 wks; (2) DIO: the mice fed with 58 kcal% high-fat diet for 12 wks; (3) DIO+LFD: the mice fed with high-fat diet for 8 wks to induce obesity, then changed to 10.5 kcal% low-fat diet for subsequent 4 wks.