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Effect of beta-glucan supplementation on cystic fibrosis colonic microbiota: an in vitro study

Pediatric Research (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Children with cystic fibrosis (CF) present with gut dysbiosis, and current evidence impedes robust recommendations on the use of prebiotics. This study aimed at establishing the prebiotic potential of a commercial beta-glucan on the in vitro colonic microbiota of a child with CF compared to a healthy counterpart (H).

Methods

A dynamic simulator of colonic fermentation (twin-SHIME® model) was set up including the simulation of the proximal (PC) and distal colon (DC) of the CF and the H subjects by colonizing the bioreactors with faecal microbiota. During two weeks the system was supplied with the beta-glucan. At baseline, during treatment and post-treatment, microbiota composition was profiled by 16 S rRNA and short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) production was determined by GS-MS.

Results

At baseline, Faecalibacterium, was higher in CF’ DC than in the H, along higher Acidaminococcus and less Megasphaera and Sutterella. Beta-glucan supplementation induced increased microbiota richness and diversity in both subjects during the treatment. At genus level, Pseudomonas and Veillonella decreased, while Akkermansia and Faecalibacterium increased significantly in CF.

Conclusion

The supplementation with beta-glucan suggests positive results on CF colonic microbiota in the in vitro context, encouraging further research in the in vivo setting.

Impact

  • Current evidence supports assessing the effect of prebiotics on modifying cystic fibrosis microbiota.

  • The effect of beta-glucan supplementation was evaluated in a controlled dynamic in vitro colonic ecosystem.

  • Beta-glucan supplement improved diversity in cystic fibrosis colonic microbiota.

  • The treatment showed increased abundance of Faecalibacterium and Akkermansia in cystic fibrosis.

  • New evidence supports the use of prebiotics in future clinical studies.

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Fig. 1: Relative abundance of phyla in cystic fibrosis (CF) and healthy (H) microbiota, in both colonic regions (PC proximal colon, DC distal colon) in the three periods of the experiment (B baseline, T treatment, PT posttreatment).
Fig. 2: Relative abundance of genus in cystic fibrosis (CF) and healthy (H) microbiota, in both colonic regions (PC proximal colon, DC distal colon) in the three periods of the experiment (B baseline, T treatment, PT posttreatment).
Fig. 3: Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) production in cystic fibrosis (CF) and healthy (H) microbiota, in both colonic regions (PC proximal colon, DC distal colon) in the three periods of the experiment (B baseline, T treatment, PT posttreatment).
Fig. 4: Correlation matrix between bacterial genera and metabolites.

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Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The Illumina sequencing raw data was uploaded to the NCBI database (Submission: ERA23351972, on 15-05-2023) with project reference PRJEB62140, and accession number 326f56c0-a122-4805-94fd-75fc6e881792.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the children and their families who were involved in the study and Veronica Ballester, the nurse of the paediatric CF unit of Hospital La Fe. RCB would like to acknowledge the support from Generalitat-Valenciana for the grant Plan GenT project (CDEIGENT 2020). JCL acknowledge the Juan de la Cierva Formación Post-doctoral contract awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (FJC2019-041730-I). AAG would like also to thank the Post-doctoral contract awarded by the Universitat Politècnica de València (PAID-01-21). IATA-CSIC is a Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa (CEX2021-001189-S MCIN/AEI / 10.13039/ 501100011033). This project was funded by “Programa INBIO 2021” with reference PEDIMIC/AP2021-22 and “Ayuda para potenciar la investigación postdoctoral de la UPV” with reference PAIDPD-22.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ingeniería de Alimentos para el Desarrollo. Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain

    Andrea Asensio-Grau, Ana Heredia & Ana Andrés

  2. Unidad Mixta de Investigación (NutriCuraPDig), Valencia, Spain

    Andrea Asensio-Grau, Ana Heredia, Jorge García-Hernández, Etna Masip, Carmen Ribes-Koninckx, Ana Andrés & Joaquim Calvo-Lerma

  3. Centro Avanzado de Microbiología de Alimentos (CAMA), Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain

    Jorge García-Hernández

  4. Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology-Spanish National Research Council (IATA-CSIC), Valencia, Spain

    Raúl Cabrera-Rubio, Maria Carmen Collado & Joaquim Calvo-Lerma

  5. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria La Fe, Valencia, Spain

    Etna Masip & Carmen Ribes-Koninckx

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Contributions

AAG, AH, JGH, MCC, CRK, AA and JCL conceived and designed research. AAG, AH and JGH conducted experiments. RCR and MCC contributed new reagents or analytical tools. EM and CRK provided the faecal samples and resources. AAG, JCL and RCR analysed data. AAG and JCL wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrea Asensio-Grau.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethics committees of University Hospital La Fe (Valencia, Spain) (Ref. 2021-111-1) and Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia, Spain) (Ref. P09_24_11_2021), and perfomerd in accordance with de Declaration of Helinski.

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Inform consent was obtained from the participating individual’s guardian.

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Asensio-Grau, A., Heredia, A., García-Hernández, J. et al. Effect of beta-glucan supplementation on cystic fibrosis colonic microbiota: an in vitro study. Pediatr Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-023-02944-0

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