An opportunistic pathogen isolated from the gut of an obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

By N. Fei, Liping Zhao. The ISME Journal, 2012

696 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Lipopolysaccharide endotoxin is the only known bacterial product which, when subcutaneously infused into mice in its purified form, can induce obesity and insulin resistance via an inflammation-mediated pathway. Here we show that one endotoxin-producing bacterium isolated from a morbidly obese human’s gut induced obesity and insulin resistance in germfree mice. The endotoxin-producing Enterobacter decreased in relative abundance from 35% of the volunteer’s gut bacteria to non-detectable, during which time the volunteer lost 51.4 kg of 174.8 kg initial weight and recovered from hyperglycemia and hypertension after 23 weeks on a diet of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics. A decreased abundance of endotoxin biosynthetic genes in the gut of the volunteer was correlated with a decreased circulating endotoxin load and alleviated inflammation. Mono-association of germfree C57BL/6J mice with strain Enterobacter cloacae B29 isolated from the volunteer’s gut induced fully developed obesity and insulin resistance on a high-fat diet but not on normal chow diet, whereas the germfree control mice on a high-fat diet did not exhibit the same disease phenotypes. The Enterobacter-induced obese mice showed increased serum endotoxin load and aggravated inflammatory conditions. The obesity-inducing capacity of this human-derived endotoxin producer in gnotobiotic mice suggests that it may causatively contribute to the development of obesity in its human host.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Molecular Biology, Rehabilitation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8e7fed129b8d9b2550b097d430d81820d28100bb

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Epidemiology

1. Patrice D Cani
2. Zahraa Al Bander
3. N. Naderpoor
4. Aya Mousa
5. M. Nitert

In Molecular Biology

1. Patrice D Cani
2. M. Derrien
3. Zahraa Al Bander
4. N. Naderpoor
5. Aya Mousa
6. M. Nitert
7. S. Pesoa
8. L. Gauthier

In Rehabilitation

1. Patrice D Cani
2. Zahraa Al Bander
3. N. Naderpoor
4. Aya Mousa
5. M. Nitert

Citations in the corpus

• The Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes Ratio: A Relevant Marker of Gut Dysbiosis in Obese Patients? (2020, background): “reported that Bacteroidetes mainly produce acetate and propionate, whereas Firmicutes produce more butyrate [36].”
• The Gut Microbiota and Inflammation: An Overview (2020, methodology): “This demonstrates a link between gut microbes that trigger the production of pro-inflammatory mediators, and the downstream effects of inflammatory and metabolic disorders [136].”
• Human gut microbiome: hopes, threats and promises (2018, result): “126 127 Thus, these kinds of findings are interesting but cannot be generalised and warrant further confirmation using extensive studies, as detailed previously.”
• Modulation of gut microbiota during probiotic-mediated attenuation of metabolic syndrome in high fat diet-fed mice (2014, background): “Specifically, each of the 13 key bacterial phylotypes that were both increased by probiotics and negatively correlated with MS disease parameters will be isolated with a sequence-guided isolation scheme (Fei and Zhao, 2013) and then inoculated into animal models of MS.”