Abstract
A healthy gut microbiota is essential to promote host health and well-being, therefore, effects of dietary components on the gut microbiome are important to investigate as the gastrointestinal tract can be a major route of infection. Iron—an essential component of heme and iron-sulfur proteins—plays a central role in many biological activities, including oxygen transport and cellular respiration.
In particular, the iron homeostasis system is one of the best characterized due to iron's causative relationship with iron-deficiency anemia. Dietary iron supplementation is a commonly used treatment for iron deficiency anemia; however, the known direct impacts of iron on the gut microbiome functional potential remain limited.
In the present study, using Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model organism, we sought to determine if increases in dietary iron would cause changes in taxonomic composition and gut microbiome function. Based on our analysis, an increase in dietary iron significantly altered the zebrafish microbiome taxonomic composition with specific increases in Firmicutes and Proteobacteria.
Analysis of taxa for functional potential suggested that iron enriches physiological functions such as aerobic respiration. These results will be further explored through a metabolomic analysis of primary metabolites and lipids.
BE-03 Effects of Dietary Iron on Taxonomic Composition and Function of the Zebrafish Gut Microbiome
A healthy gut microbiota is essential to promote host health and well-being, therefore, effects of dietary components on the gut microbiome are important to investigate as the gastrointestinal tract can be a major route of infection. Iron—an essential component of heme and iron-sulfur proteins—plays a central role in many biological activities, including oxygen transport and cellular respiration.
In particular, the iron homeostasis system is one of the best characterized due to iron's causative relationship with iron-deficiency anemia. Dietary iron supplementation is a commonly used treatment for iron deficiency anemia; however, the known direct impacts of iron on the gut microbiome functional potential remain limited.
In the present study, using Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model organism, we sought to determine if increases in dietary iron would cause changes in taxonomic composition and gut microbiome function. Based on our analysis, an increase in dietary iron significantly altered the zebrafish microbiome taxonomic composition with specific increases in Firmicutes and Proteobacteria.
Analysis of taxa for functional potential suggested that iron enriches physiological functions such as aerobic respiration. These results will be further explored through a metabolomic analysis of primary metabolites and lipids.