Milk fat globule membrane supplementation modulates the gut microbiota and attenuates metabolic endotoxemia in high-fat diet-fed mice

Gut microbiota plays an important role in the development of obesity and related metabolic endotoxemia. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) could alter the composition of gut microbiota and exert a beneficial impact on combating high-fat diet-induced metabolic endotoxemia. Results showed that MFGM improved the gut microbiota dysbiosis induced by high-fat diet in C57BL/6J mice, including increasing the Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratios and the relative abundance of S24-7. Spearman correlation analysis indicated that there existed a correlation between gut microbiota and obesity-related indexes. MFGM also alleviated high-fat diet-induced intestinal inflammation by decreasing the levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and increasing the expression of tight junction proteins including zonulin-1 (ZO-1) and occludin. Moreover, MFGM significantly decreased the levels of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), IL-6 and TNF-alpha in serum of high-fat diet-induced mice. These findings demonstrated that MFGM supplementation ameliorated obesity-related inflammation and endotoxemia partly via modulating the composition of gut microbiota in mice challenged with a high-fat diet.