Abstract:The effects of dietary inulin on gut microbiota in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in mice were investigated. The mice were fed dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) to establish IBD mice model. In this study, C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into three groups: blank control group (CON) was administered with distilled water, model group (IBD) was treated with distilled water containing 2.5% DSS, as well as inulin treated with model group (INU) was administered with 2 g/kg inulin and 2.5% DSS. The body weight, fecal consistency and hematochezia of mice in diverse groups were monitored daily. After intervention, the pathological features of colon tissue were observed by hematoxylin-eosin staining, as well as intestinal flora diversity in feces of mice was analyzed by 16s rDNA high throughput sequencing. The results showed that inulin administration significantly increased the body weights (p<0.05), ameliorated diarrhea, hematochezia and colonic tissue damage, as well as reduced disease activity index in IBD mice (p<0.05). The sequencing results indicated that after inulin supplementation, the relative abundance of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were increased to 28.70% and 0.06% (p<0.05), respectively, compared with IBD group, whilst the proportion of Proteobacteria was decreased to 0.66% in comparison with IBD group (p<0.05). In conclusion, inulin administration altered the composition of gut microbiota in IBD mice via increasing probiotic Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium and decreasing Proteobacteria.
