Polysaccharide from Flammulina velutipes attenuates markers of metabolic syndrome by modulating the gut microbiota and lipid metabolism in high fat diet-fed mice

Natural biological macromolecules with putative functions of gut microbiota regulation possess the advantage of improving metabolic syndrome (MS). In this research, we aimed to determine the effects of Flammulina velutipes polysaccharide (FVP) (Expt. 1) and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) (Expt. 2) on MS-related disorders, gut microbiota structure changes and their underlying mechanisms in a murine model fed with high-fat diet (HFD). In Expt. 1, six-week-old male C57BL/6J mice were fed with a control diet (10% calories from fat) or a high fat diet (45% calories from fat), administered with saline or FVP (0.4 mg per g b.w.) by gavage over a 12-week period. In Expt. 2, mice were fed with a HFD, administered with fecal supernatants from healthy and FVP-fed donor mice for 12 weeks simultaneously. The body mass, blood lipid levels and blood glucose homeostasis of mice were analyzed, and total RNA from mouse liver and adipose tissue were extracted by TRIzol and the lipid metabolism-related gene expressions were calculated by qRT-PCR. Gut microbiota changes were evaluated by high-throughput sequencing. Results indicated that FVP and FMT supplementations showed an attenuation effect on mouse obesity, hyperlipidemia and insulin resistance. Up-regulated expressions of Ampk alpha 1 and Ppara were found both in FVP and FMT treatment groups. Different changes were found in the gut microbiota caused by FVP and FMT, respectively. PICRUSt analysis indicated that compared with FVP supplementation, FMT showed a significant effect on regulating lipid metabolism in HFD-fed mice. The findings from this study indicated that oral administrations of FVP or FMT could significantly attenuate MS-related obesity, hyperlipidemia and insulin resistance in HFD-fed mice, and the beneficial effects may be mediated through lipid metabolism and gut microbiota regulation in different ways. These results improve the understanding of the functional activity of FVP as prebiotics.