Fig 1.
Effects of four weeks of Ace-K consumption on the body weight gain and gut microbiome composition of CD-1 mice.
(A) The body weight gain of Ace-K-treated male mice was significantly higher than that of the control male mice, while the body weight gain of female mice was not significantly different from that of the controls. (B) Ace-K consumption altered the composition of gut bacteria in female mice. The abundances of Lactobacillus, Clostridium, an unassigned Ruminococcaceae genus and an unassigned Oxalobacteraceae genus were significantly decreased, and the abundance of Mucispirillum was increased after Ace-K consumption. (C) Ace-K consumption altered the composition of gut bacteria in male mice. The abundances of Bacteroides, Anaerostipes and Sutterella were significantly increased after Ace-K consumption (*p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001, N.S. p>0.05).
Fig 2.
Functional gene enrichment analysis showing that functional genes related to carbohydrate metabolism were significantly decreased in Ace-K-treated female mice (p<0.05 for all genes listed here).
Fig 3.
Functional gene enrichment analysis showing that functional genes related to carbohydrate metabolism were significantly increased in Ace-K-treated male mice (p<0.05).
Genes involved in carbohydrate transport (A), glycolysis and the TCA cycle (B), as well as carbohydrate degradation and fermentation (C), were consistently increased.
Fig 4.
Multiple genes encoding pro-inflammatory mediators were significantly increased in male and female mice after Ace-K consumption (p<0.05).
Genes encoding LPS metabolism proteins (A) and flagella components (B) were increased in Ace-K-treated female mice. Genes encoding LPS metabolism proteins (C) and thiol-activated cytolysin (D) were increased in Ace-K-treated male mice.
Fig 5.
Ace-K consumption changed the fecal metabolome of female (A, B) and male (C, D) mice, as illustrated by the cloud and PLS-DA plots.
Fig 6.
Ace-K consumption significantly altered key fecal metabolites in female (A) and male (B) mice (*p<0.05, **p<0.01).