Abstract:Six flavoring materials, including cinnamon, ginger, clove, fennel seeds, black pepper and wild pepper, showed regulation effect on the gastrointestinal dysfunction. This paper investigated their effects on rats’ colonic bacteria of Clostridium cluster IV and Bacteriod by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (tRFLP) after rats had been orally administrated the aqueous extract of six materials for one month. The results showed the extracts of six materials showed significant effect on the distribution of gut microflora. Especially, the aqueous extracts of cinnamon and clove significantly decreased the rate of Clostridium cluster IV and Bacteriod, while the other extracts showed opposite functions. Meanwhile, some fragments such as 89 and 172 bp of Clostridium, 76 and 614bp of Bacteriod, were significantly changed, which finally induced the very low similarity of colonic microbiota (<40% similarity of Bacteriod).
