Objective: To evaluate the cholesterol-lowering effects of Lactobacillus paragasseri Y20 on rats with high cholesterol diet and its effect on the gut microbiota of rats, and to explore the potential mechanism of Lactobacillus paragasseri regulating hypercholesterolemia in rats.
Methods: Thirty rats were randomly divided into three groups and were treated with normal diet, high cholesterol diet+PBS, and high cholesterol diet+Lactobacillus paragasseri Y20, respectively. After five consecutive weeks of treatment, serum lipids were measured by ELISA. Rat feces were collected and DNA was extracted for 16 S rRNA amplicon sequencing analysis. Rat livers were collected and analyzed for non-targeted metabolites using high performance liquid chromatography.
Results: Compared with the high-cholesterol model group, Lactobacillus paragasseri Y20 treatment could reduce the serum triglyceride and low-density lipoprotein concentrations and increase the high-density lipoprotein concentration in rats. High-cholesterol diet decreased the intestinal flora diversity and richness of rats, while Y20 intervention can effectively restore the change of intestinal flora of high-cholesterol rats. High cholesterol dietsmainly caused the changes in the relative abundance in phylum of Firmicutes, Deferribacteres, Verrucomicrobia, and Proteobacteria, increasing Akkermansia, Clostridium_III, and Clostridium_XIVbgenera, and decreasing the intestinimonasgenus. However, Y20 intervention restored the diversity of gut microbiota and alteration in relative abundance of these bacteria caused by high-cholesterol diet. Y20 could effectively decrease the higher relative abundance of Akkermansiahigh-cholesterol diet.
Conclusion: Lactobacillus paragasseri Y20 can alleviate hypercholesterolemia in rats, regulate the gut microbiotadiversity and composition and affect liver metabolism in hypercholesterol rats.
Keywords: Lactobacillus paragasseri Y20; gut microbiota; high cholesterol rats; probiotics.