A high fat diet (HFD) can result in significant changes in gut microbial composition. A large number of studies to date are simply associations between HFD consumption, altered gut bacterial composition, and promotion of obesity. Significant mechanistic research is needed to link specific gut phylotypes to obesity traits and subsequent risk for chronic disease. Although the available literature on therapeutic targeting of the microbiota to counteract diet-induced obesity appears promising, whether this presents a realistic approach is unclear. Viable agents have yet to be fully recognized, and specifics on the dose, timing and frequency of administration are still unknown. The aim of this project is to understand the microbial diversity after feeding a high fat and normal diet and decipher its role in obesity and underlying diseases.
One potential site whereby diet-induced obesity could affect physiology is the gut microbiome, as recent advances in 16S rRNA sequencing and informatics have revealed that modern diets high in fat and sugar trigger robust alterations in the core gut microbiome. The human gastrointestinal tract harbors as many as 100 trillion bacteria from up to 1000 distinct species, and this dynamic population of microbes participates in numerous physiologic functions including nutrition/digestion, growth, inflammation, immunity, and protection against pathogens. Accordingly, the varying combinations of bacteria within individuals has been suggested to underlie variable host susceptibility to illness, including neuropsychiatric impairment. For example, specific alterations in colon bacteria are associated with cognitive impairment in patients with hepatic encephalopathy (a nervous system disorder associated with liver disease) and clinical studies show that probiotics decrease anxiety and improve mental outlook. Animal studies have shown that behavior and synaptic plasticity are altered in germ-free mice, and that this phenotype is reversed by microbiome colonization. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that the obesity-associated microbiome undermines behavior even in the absence of obesity. Non-obese, adult male mice were conventionally housed and maintained on chow diet but subjected to a microbiome depletion regimine followed by adoptive transfer of cecal plus fecal samples collected from donor mice fed either high fat (HFD) or control diet (CD). Recipient mice were subjected to a battery of neuropsychological tests, followed by sequencing of gut microbiota, and thorough biochemical evaluation of intestine, blood and brain samples.
Link to the DataSet:
You can run the demo pipeline on the T-Bioinfo Server to learn the flow of steps in the pipeline and visualize the results obtained:
https://server.t-bio.info/pipelinesamplicon16s18s/demopipelines/demo-chow-vs-hfd
To get more insights about the project, run the pipelines and learn to interpret results, you can visit the example project on the OmicsLogic Learn Portal: https://learn.omicslogic.com/courses/course/project-13-role-of-high-fat-diet-on-obesity