Objective The gut microbiota has been proposed as an interesting therapeutic target for metabolic disorders. Inulin as a prebiotic has been shown to lessen obesity and related diseases. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether preintervention gut microbiota characteristics determine the physiological response to inulin. Design The stools from four obese donors differing by microbial diversity and composition were sampled before the dietary intervention and inoculated to antibiotic-pretreated mice (hum-ob mice; humanised obese mice). Hum-ob mice were fed with a high-fat diet and treated with inulin. Metabolic and microbiota changes on inulin treatment in hum-ob mice were compared with those obtained in a cohort of obese individuals supplemented with inulin for 3 months. Results We show that hum-ob mice colonised with the faecal microbiota from different obese individuals differentially respond to inulin supplementation on a high-fat diet. Among several bacterial genera, Barnesiella, Bilophila, Butyricimonas, Victivallis, Clostridium XIVa, Akkermansia, Raoultella and Blautia correlated with the observed metabolic outcomes (decrease in adiposity and hepatic steatosis) in hum-ob mice. In addition, in obese individuals, the preintervention levels of Anaerostipes, Akkermansia and Butyricicoccus drive the decrease of body mass index in response to inulin. Conclusion These findings support that characterising the gut microbiota prior to nutritional intervention with prebiotics is important to increase the positive outcome in the context of obesity and metabolic disorders.

中文翻译：

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肠道微生物特征的发现推动了益生元干预对肥胖患者的疗效

目的肠道微生物群已被提议作为代谢紊乱的一个有趣的治疗靶点。菊粉作为一种益生元已被证明可以减轻肥胖和相关疾病。本研究的目的是调查干预前肠道微生物群特征是否决定了对菊粉的生理反应。设计 在饮食干预之前，对来自微生物多样性和组成不同的四个肥胖供体的粪便进行采样，并将其接种到抗生素预处理的小鼠（hum-ob 小鼠；人源化肥胖小鼠）中。Hum-ob 小鼠被喂食高脂肪饮食并用菊粉治疗。将 hum-ob 小鼠中菊粉处理的代谢和微生物群变化与在补充了菊粉 3 个月的一组肥胖个体中获得的变化进行了比较。结果我们表明，被不同肥胖个体的粪便微生物群定植的 hum-ob 小鼠对高脂肪饮食中的菊粉补充剂有不同的反应。在几个细菌属中，Barnesiella、Bilophila、Butyricimonas、Victivallis、Clostridium XIVa、Akkermansia、Raoultella 和 Blautia 与在 hum-ob 小鼠中观察到的代谢结果（肥胖和肝脏脂肪变性减少）相关。此外，在肥胖个体中，厌氧菌、Akkermansia 和 Butyricicoccus 的干预前水平会导致体重指数下降，以响应菊粉。结论这些发现支持在用益生元进行营养干预之前表征肠道微生物群对于增加肥胖和代谢紊乱背景下的积极结果很重要。